


A Handful of Rain

by riyku



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:12:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riyku/pseuds/riyku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life on the streets had taught Jensen that everything came with a price. Family was a word that meant the people who kicked you out, religion was nothing more than a free meal, and salvation something that he could buy for ten bucks a hit down on the bad side of town. Scoring had become his full-time job, and finding a safe place to sleep was what he did in his time off. It was only a matter of time until this life caught up with him. Now, strung out and with no where else to go, Jensen finds himself following his feet to a place he never thought he would go--to the home of a stranger who can unfailingly see past Jensen's mistakes, and who can see right through to the good that is still left within him. The challenge is getting Jensen to see it as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Handful of Rain

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2010 spn_j2_bigbang.

 

 

  
_We’re all just walking each other home._  
-Ram Dass

 

 

 

 

The first thing he felt was the cold air that rushed across him, pulling him out of wherever he’d been—that ocean-sized place, Lala Land, the Kingdom of Nod. It was moving too fast, and he wanted it to slow down, take it’s time so that he could figure it out. Suss out why it was there. But it had moved on, another digression, a train of thought that left the station before he could hop on board and grab a seat. One that faced forward. He didn’t want to get motion sickness.

  
There were stars now, being glimpsed discreetly through the lashes of his half-closed eyes. Or streetlamps passing for stars. They somehow refracted and multiplied. They floated then got sucked into a dark sky that was…what? Ocean-sized, of course. And he would have to remember that, tuck that thought away for later, think about it when there was more sense in the world; when there was more sense in him. But for now, he was alright, everything was alright. No, he was fucked up, and that was alright. All right?  
  
A wave of nausea passed through him—it was familiar, an almost comforting feeling. He started to turn his head to the side, but the path between his nervous system and his muscles was seemingly blocked. There was no crossing that bridge, no possibility of movement.  
  
He wondered if this was what so many others felt in their last seconds, and if he was going to go now, just like this. Like famous people, stars. Well, that was pretty goddamn rock and roll of him. Only, he barely played guitar and couldn’t even sing all that well. For him to meet his maker in the same way wouldn’t be clichéd—it would be pathetic. No headlines for this one. He wouldn’t even show up on the back cover of the morning paper.  
  
He tried to draw in a deep breath, as if the cold air could clean him out, scour his insides and replace the dirty atoms that made up his cells with pure ones. So he could make a fresh start out of the night. Wade his way through it so he could see the morning, the sun again, and maybe then he’d quit. He probably wouldn’t, but it would be nice to have the choice. Maybe he could, if given the chance.  
  
Chance. An image of the word flared up; capitalized like a proper noun, large and bright red against the black of his eyelids. When had he closed his eyes?  
  
Chance. Only one small difference and it would read Change. He didn’t think that was an accident. There really were no such things as accidents. Only choices. Fate was free will’s bitch, after all. If he could’ve smiled, if his failing nerve endings were to respond to their commands, his face would have split into a grin at that notion. Maybe he was making more sense than he’d thought.  
  
This was just another digression, wasn’t it? Right now he ought to be concentrating on breathing. On turning these shallow movements of air into something deeper, cleaner, better.  
  
Leave it to him to take something simple and make it complicated. Some would say it was his singular talent. Again, he wished he could smile.  
  
It was ironic, how all of this would end in an incomplete thought. This thing that had started as a fucked up, backward search for divinity had turned into something else. Into something that happened in all of the nowhere places, a search that started in a grimy alleyway, and ended up on a dirty mattress in a building that might have been condemned.  
  
But for right now, he really only wanted one small thing. He wanted to be able to open his eyes. To watch the nighttime sky and choose which star he would he would rocket toward when all of this was through. It wasn’t like choosing a star to wish upon, more like hedging his bets. If his heart held out until morning, he would choose the sun. It was closest. It would be a quick trip.  
  
He was going, and he knew it. Only, there wasn’t a feeling of panic about it, rather something more like giving in. A sensation of timeliness.  
  
There was nothing to be done, except to simply let go. Stop holding on and fall into that in-between place, that place he’d been looking for all along, where everything made sense because nothing ever did. It was an easy choice.  
  
Then he was moving, being turned to his side, and a voice was breaking through from the other side of the universe. It was a woman’s voice. It sounded oddly resigned.  
  
“Are you with me? What’s your name? Can you tell me your name?”  
  
Hands grappled with him roughly, lifted up his arm, and he wondered how strong this person was. He couldn’t have done this, not if his life depended on it. Funny, in a way it sort of did. His sleeve was pushed up a little, and there was more cold air.  
  
“What’s your name? Do you know where you are?” A finger pushed his eyelid open, another one pressed against the side of his neck. A light shined into his eyes, and he wished it was the sun, but it was just a flashlight; one of those little pen shaped jobs. It felt like an interruption.  
  
The voice spoke up again, professional and curt. “Pulse is weak, breathing shallow. Pupils constricted. He’s nonresponsive.”  
  
Nonresponsive. He thought that it was a good description for the human condition. He would have to tuck that idea away as well.  
  
The light disappeared, and in its place came a different one, flickering red and blue and white. There was the sound of a heavy engine thundering away close by. Sense started to creep in around the edges, whispering softly to him. He didn’t like what it was telling him. He wanted to thank the woman when she let go of his eyelid and he could sink into darkness again.  
  
Another set of hands were on him now, pushing his sleeves up higher. “See that?” This voice was deeper, gruff, a man with an out-of-state accent that sounded northern. Not New York, but close enough. Maybe Jersey. “Fuckin’ junkie. Bad shit hit the street last week. I should’ve known it right away.”  
  
His arm slapped back down against the pavement. It didn’t hurt. That was the good thing about junk. There was never any pain.  
  
“What did you take? Can you hear me?” It was the woman again, her voice a little less resigned now. Maybe a little more like angry.  
  
He wanted to tell them to just let him be, give him a few minutes to finish what he’d started. But if there was one thing that he’d learned in his few decades of life, it was that there was never enough time. There was always some interruption. Some digression.  
  
Something was being tied around his left arm, and he wanted to tell them that it was a lost cause. All the veins in that side had collapsed a week ago, and a hit to the muscle never quite did the trick. Sure, it stopped the shakes, but there was no rush. Try the other arm, there was still a good mainline somewhere in his right hand.  
  
But it turned out that this chick was good. “I’m pushing Narcan. Get ready to hold him down. He’s not gonna like this.”  
  
Cold air hit his lungs in a rush, and his eyes flew open, almost but not quite focusing on a woman kneeling beside him. Her hands were working to put a dropper in a red plastic biohazard bag, but her eyes were not leaving him.  
  
“Welcome back,” she said to him, and for a split second he hated her.  
  
“Fuck,” he replied thickly, struggling to sit up, but the other set of hands covered in blue latex gloves held him fast.  
  
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” It was the man this time.  
  
Reality was slipping back in with fits and starts. The sidewalk was clammy, cold and wet beneath him. It was raining a little, the freezing specks starting to soak in through his jeans. If his mother was here she would have told him that he would catch his death. And how right she would be.  
  
He’d been chasing it all along, and it was only a matter of time until he caught up with it.  
  
He looked around, wide-eyed and still gasping, trying to get his bearings. This place was strange but familiar at the same time. Another forgotten sidewalk in another forgotten section of town. It was a place where respectable people did not even drive through in the daylight, much less at night.  
  
He had no idea how he’d gotten to this spot. Hell, he had no idea how he had gotten outside. If he was truthful, he really had no clue whether he’d actually woken up this morning, or yesterday morning for that matter.  
  
“Up and at ‘em,” the woman said, getting to her feet and lifting under his shoulders. The man grabbed his thighs and together they moved him to a stretcher waiting a foot away.  
  
“I’m fine,” he said to her, struggling to sit up. Really, he was. More sober than he’d been in months, even if he counted the time he’d gone dry for three days, just to get that feeling again.  
  
“No, you’re not. The Narcan will wear off in about an hour, and then you’re going to be in a world of hurt.” There was a little bit of sympathy in her voice. It sounded strange, out of place.  
  
“He’s gonna be in a world of hurt no matter how you slice it,” the man said to her.  
  
She ignored him, instead asking, “What’s your name?”  
  
“What’s it to you?” he asked. It turned out that belligerence was a side effect of startling and sudden sobriety.  
  
“You ungrateful son of a bitch,” growled the man beside him as his hands worked to draw straps across the stretcher, quickly and effectively holding him in place.  
  
“You don’t have to tell me your name. It’s alright,” the woman told him, lifting the stretcher. The legs beneath it slammed down with a squawk and they started to roll him toward the ambulance. He felt like they were about to take him to his funeral. Maybe they were.  
  
“It’s Jensen,” he muttered.  
  
She patted his shoulder, and actually had the audacity to smile. “Good to meet you, Jensen. I’m the gal who just saved your life.”

  
  


The first thing that Jensen remembered was a key. It was this antique-looking thing, one that wouldn’t fit into a door. The key was too small for a padlock and too big to be one of those that would open a diary. Dark metal, a little red looking, but then again everything looked a little red right now. He associated it with a water-heavy sponge wiping away the sticky spit that glued his lips shut, and a cool, dry hand on a fever-sweaty forehead.  
  
But before he could make sense of it everything shattered, and all memories of keys and kind touches from hands not covered in blue-colored latex were gone in a haze of pain. The muscles in his legs cramped up, so did the muscles in his stomach. Hell, even the ones in his little finger were wide awake and shouting at him.  
  
His skin itched everywhere, but his arms were tied to the rails of a hospital bed, stopping him from scratching. Two thin little synthetic straps that might have well been iron shackles. He remembered being bound; four orderlies holding him down on the ground as he kicked and punched and bit while two nurses with tight lipped, sullen expressions quickly changed the sheets on his bed. The floor smelled like ammonia, like institutionalized illness.  
  
It had happened after he’d tried to leave, ripping the IV out of his arm, leaving a spray of blood on the bed’s stiff white sheets, clumsy feet and shaky legs tripping across the room. He’d shoved over that poor nurse who’d reminded him that he was going nowhere, the tiny girl with the painted-on smile and cold, faraway eyes. That was maybe yesterday, or three hours back, or five minutes ago, Jensen couldn’t be sure.  
  
He’d probably feel bad about it later, but right now nothing seemed bigger than that cold itch. It started at the base of his spine and traveled as far as his nerves could carry it. It blanked out everything else.  
  
He wouldn’t beg, though. He’d been taught better.  
  
 _“Never say please, Jensen. People like us don’t ask. We never plead for anything. We always assume that everything that we want is ours for the taking. It’s essential that you remember that.”_ It was his mother’s voice, he’d recognize that bored sound anywhere. It was just as crystal clear and real as the pain cutting through his guts.  
  
He wrenched his sight toward the empty chair in the corner of the room, a feeling of dread slicing a straightaway through everything else. He was certain that she would be sitting there, straight backed, perfectly manicured nails resting on primly crossed legs. The impossibility of it did not matter. Reality was definitely not the name of the game. Not in here. Certainly not in here.  
  
The chair was empty, so was the rest of the room. It was bathed in a blue-white florescent light that stabbed its way into his eyes and left no shadows, left nothing to the imagination. No shine of red nail polish or glint of tastefully expensive jewelry. But then he blinked, caught something, and maybe, just maybe.  
  
 _“Get yourself together, young man. No one should see you like this. It’s one thing to be ill, it’s another thing entirely to let people see it.”_ There she was again, on the other side now, and as unsympathetic as ever. _“It’s unseemly,”_ she whispered, this time so close that Jensen thought he could feel her breath ghosting along his ear. Jesus, he swore he could smell her-- smell the way the air around her was tinged with a mixture of cigarettes and expensive perfume. Instantly recognizable, even though it had been years since she’d had air to breathe.  
  
Jensen squirmed, legs tangling in a thin cotton sheet that might as well have been made of lead, trying to twist himself away from the sound, the smell, the feeling.  
  
“You can’t be here,” and damned if he didn’t sound completely unlike himself. The noise that came from his throat was rough, hoarse, like he’d been yelling for hours. “It’s not possible. Leave me alone,” he continued, knowing that the room was empty and this was the first step toward going certifiably crazy--not junk crazy, that was different, somehow acceptable--but real, honest to god lunacy. Even still, he was sure to deepen his voice, make it assertive. Yeah, he’d learned this lesson more than a decade ago.  
  
Jensen pictured the woman, her arched aristocratic nose forever at an upward angle so that she could cast her icy eyes down on everyone and everything. He’d inherited that nose from her but, thankfully, little of her attitude. Only her tendency for righteous self-destruction.  
  
And god, fuck, he needed just one hit. One last hit to set him straight. A little bit, it didn’t even have to be good. Just enough to unknot the muscles in his legs and get him on his feet again. Banish his mother’s ghost and take some of his other demons down too. Get him well. Just one more, then he could quit. It would be a final goodbye, like that last glance over the shoulder that always happened in those sad movies that played on boring Sunday afternoons. What was it called? Closure. That was it, he needed closure. Hell, he deserved it. After all, he’d made it this far.  
  
Jensen knew this was junkie logic, garbage that was one part justification and three parts backward thinking, but sometimes junkie logic was the only brand in town. If you needed a hit, you got a hit, _quod erat demonstradum._ Q.E.D.  
  
The worst part about it was that he knew they had it. Maybe not on this floor, the wing where hospital staff played tour director to a pile of junkies, drunks, and lunatics, each taking an all-expenses-paid trip to their own personal hell, but somewhere in this building it was here. Oxy would help. Shit, Xanax, even Thorazine might do the trick. Then there was Dilaudid, the good pharmaceutical dope, the color of liquid gold, ready-made for a straight shot, no assembly required. So much better than morphine. Jensen wasn’t above self-service. All they needed to do was let him go, point him in the right direction. He would promise to come right back, lay back down in this bed, close his eyes and quietly drift up, up, and away.  
  
Then there was another sound, a few quiet chords strumming a very familiar song. Jensen closed his eyes, not wanting to see and willing the music to stop, but will power had never been his strong suit and it just continued, dragging up his past and all of his sins right along with it. Every single one.  
  
 _“It was only a matter of time.”_ A disembodied voice spoke, calm and deep and so, so beautiful. It was a voice that Jensen knew, and wanted and needed so much that the very idea of it yanked his insides to the outside.  
  
“Not you,” Jensen said, “you aren’t supposed to be here. You _can’t_ be.” His eyes were leaking, his nose was running, and he tried to convince himself that it was just the dope running out of his body. A symptom. That’s all this was. All of it. “I can take a lot, just not this.”  
  
The ghost voice started humming along with the song that wasn’t really there, and Jensen was afraid to look. Instead, he kept his gaze fixed stubbornly on his hand. His nails were ragged, cracked up and dirty.  
  
And although none of this was real, when it came right down to it, Jensen couldn’t stop himself. There were too many conversations they hadn’t had the chance to have, too many nights and too many junk-sick mornings that had been stolen away. “Stay with me,” he said, trying to pull his legs in close to his chest, but the restraints stopped him short.  
  
The music hit on an off note before continuing. _“You know that I can’t do that.”_ A few more bars of humming. _“You made a promise, Jensen. Remember?”_  
  
Jensen’s head was spinning through promises made and promises broken without a second thought. His fucking teeth hurt and the itching in his skin intensified, burning bright, boring in, and he wished that he could bleed out, right here and now. He wanted something, anything, to be easy.  
  
“Please.” Jensen knew he could beg, with him if no one else. “Don’t do this to me,” his voice was growing louder, rougher, meaner.  
  
 _“But you do remember.”_  
  
“Shut up.” Another stuttering breath and Jensen’s voice went down some. “Just be quiet, but don’t leave.”  
  
 _“If you’re broken, fix yourself.”_ The music stopped, and the empty room felt all that more deserted for it.

Three more days gone, with fits and flashes of memories. With needles piercing his arms, but none of them giving him what he needed the most. Rather, a Tetanus shot, as if that might be his biggest problem, a new IV when the swelling in his vein backed up the last one, a couple of blood draws, and tests, tests, tests. A visit from a social worker - she had informed him that his forced admission to the hospital was indeed legal—some law about homeless people, like a permanent address and a phone bill could reinstate Jensen’s rights as a human being.  
  
And then there were the drug counselors and shrinks, who tried to convince him that he was sick, that he was speeding down a one-way track to somewhere that wasn’t too great. They sat by his bed, professional concern hanging so heavily about them that Jensen could hardly see through it, could barely catch a glimpse of what they actually looked like beneath all of their talk of high hopes and statistics about high and low relapse rates. High. Low. The language of junkies. Jensen wished he could be more creative.  
  
In total, five days gone since he’d been brought in, and gone with them the physical pain of getting clean. The sweats had laid off, the muscle cramps too. No more ghostly noises, honey smooth voices, and indistinct nighttime hallucinations. Jensen sort of missed them. In a place where everyone else had control, at least they had been _his_ , a little secret he could call his own Sure, they hadn’t made sense, but to him nothing ever really did.  
  
“How are we feeling this morning?” A small, too-chipper voice came from the doorway. Jensen jumped a little and glanced over. It was the nurse that he’d gone after a few days back. He was surprised that she was willing to give him another shot.  
  
Shot, shot, shot. It always came back to that.  
  
She moved efficiently, opening up the blinds, bathing the room in a pale light that the linoleum floor reflected. It was foggy outside. Looked cold. The nurse’s eyes made a quick sweep of the instruments that were attached to Jensen by tiny wire umbilicals.  
  
“You look better, Jensen,” she continued when he didn’t answer her. “If I take these things off, do you promise not to come after me?” She smiled as she spoke. Her small fingers made quick work of the straps still holding him down.   She stood on her toes and leaned over his bed to reach the far side.  
  
The second strap was undone, and Jensen’s urge to make a run for it cut through him. Bright, sharp, and just this side of irresistible. He wanted, no, _needed_ to find the first familiar back alley corner and beg the first fixer he saw for a hit. He’d do just about anything for anything. As it turned out, it was possible to take the kid out of the country, but no one could take the country out of this kid. But too many scenarios flashed in his head, the brightest being the likelihood of just getting roped down again, and he bit back the desire.  
  
Instead, Jensen decided to try sincerity on for size, just to see how it fit him. “Listen, about that,” he began, but she just waved it away.  
  
“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I learned ages ago to not take patients too seriously. It’s an occupational hazard. No harm, no foul.”  
  
His muscles protested after days of disuse, but Jensen still stretched his arms above his head. He never knew that such a simple action could feel so good. There were things that would feel better, a lot of things, but Jensen figured that he had to take what he could get.  
  
“You’ve done some damage there,” his nurse observed, nodding toward the pale flesh on the inside of his arms, the purple-brown tracks there, and Jensen was suddenly self-conscious. He dropped his arms, crossed them as well as he could with the wires and tubes still attached.  
  
A tense silence filled the room. Then his nurse shrugged it off with what may have been a mumbled apology and rifled through a cabinet behind his bed.  
  
“Time to get you ready for your close-up,” she said, producing a toothbrush and toothpaste and handing them over with a plastic cup of water.  Your doctor will be here soon.”  
  
“What does that mean?”  
  
“I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise,” she continued, back at the cabinet again, this time returning with a pan of hot water and a shaving kit.  
  
She set to work, cleaning him up, shaving him with quick, efficient strokes that bugged the hell out of him as he lay there, too scared to breathe and risk a nick or a cut.  
  
It was ironic, how he was completely on board with the idea of any two-bit junkie hammering a nail into his vein for him, but the thought of a paid professional taking a razor to his face had his stomach rolling. Talk about backward.  
  
The nurse was cleaning up when the doctor arrived, a clipboard in his hands and an open white lab coat over rumpled clothing. He leveled a too-bright smile in Jensen’s direction and asked, “How are we doing today?”  
  
Jensen wanted to ask what the deal was with plural first person pronouns in this place, but bit the question back. “I don’t know, doc, you tell me,” Jensen said, running a hand along his newly smooth jaw.  
  
“We ran the whole shebang on you. You’re looking pretty good, all things considered.” The doctor rifled through a few pages. “No hep,” his eyebrows crept up toward his hairline, “everything came back negative. A little dehydrated, and you could stand to put on a few pounds, but you’re surprisingly clean.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I’ve never been too big on sharing,” Jensen shrugged.  
  
“Everybody’s a comedian,” his doctor responded. “Now there are several options open to you for long term recovery care.”  
  
It was about then that Jensen stopped paying attention.

Jensen pulled his worn hooded sweatshirt over his head and picked up a small plastic bag containing his belongings. He spread out the contents on the hospital bed. Not much in there—his silver ring, a crumpled pack of smokes, a couple of lighters, a dog-eared journal small enough to fit into his back pocket, and a worn-down nub of a pencil.  
  
“Where’s my wallet?” Jensen shouted to the other side of the curtain, desperation shooting through him. No wallet meant no ID, no ID meant no money, no money meant no dope, and no dope meant a really fucked up afternoon.  
  
“Everything you came in here with is there,” the woman responded. It was another social worker this time, another clipboard stranger, another obstacle. “You’re avoiding the topic. Do you have someone to pick you up? Do you have somewhere to go? I have a list of half-way houses that can take you in.”  
  
“Half-way to where?” Jensen asked absently, checking for the fourth time to make sure the bag was empty, as if his wallet would miraculously appear out of thin air. Stranger things had happened. “Where did they pick me up?”  
  
“You don’t remember?” the woman asked. She didn’t sound surprised, only resigned.  
  
“Just answer the question,” Jensen slipped the ring onto his finger and the journal into the back pocket of his jeans. “Please,” he added as an afterthought, since it never hurt to be polite.  
  
The sound of papers rustling snuck through the thin curtain surrounding his bed. “Fourth and Washington,” she replied.  
  
“Then I guess I have someplace to go,” Jensen said, pulling back the curtain and sliding past her.  
  
“What are you going to do? You need to have a plan.” The social worker moved quickly, trying to block his exit.  
  
“I have a plan, alright.”  Find a fix, find some money, find another fix. Rinse and repeat. And somewhere along the line, figure out who the hell took his wallet. He had a few ideas of where to start on that one. “Write the next great American novel,” he said instead. He poked a finger at the paper she held in front of her, her pen poised. “You can write that in the little box marked ‘treatment program.’”  
  
He’d had enough of strangers, of people telling him what to do and how to do it. He’d never been too great at taking orders. Giving them, maybe, but not taking them.  
  
Jensen pushed at her, it was gentle, barely more than a hand on her upper arm, but he got his point across clear enough, judging from the slight slump of her shoulders and her frustrated sigh.  
  
The hallway was bright and blank, lined with closed doors at regular intervals, and Jensen scanned it, searching for an exit sign. There were a few people in hospital scrubs walking about, and an orderly stacking covered food trays on a cart. Jensen wondered how long it had been since he’d had a supper that didn’t consist of a candy bar and a coke, topped off with a nice little fix for dessert.  
  
At last he found the elevator. The ‘down’ button lit up green when he hit it. He waited for a second before he pressed it again, his impatience showing through. Maybe the stairs would be quicker. He had to get out. Back to his little corner of the city, where the people looked like him, spoke like him and didn’t regard him with that cold air of professional concern or inquiry. Where they barely looked at him at all.  
  
After an eternity the doors dinged open and a man strode out, almost bowling him over. His eyes were fixed firmly on the floor. The man stopped as Jensen brushed past him. “Hey. Hi,” he said, hazel eyes peeking down at him through his long brown bangs. Jesus, he was tall.  
  
Jensen paused, peering at the stranger closely. There was something oddly familiar about him, only he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It felt like a fever dream, and he’d had his fair share of those recently.  
  
“I’m Jared,” the man said, sticking out a hand the size of a dinner plate in Jensen’s direction. Jensen blinked at it.  
  
“Jensen,” he said, taking it. This sort of social nicety still was bred into him, even after all this time. “I was just leaving.” He wondered why he felt the urge to explain himself to this stranger. He was just wasting time.  
  
“It’s good to see you on your feet,” Jared continued, tossing a smile his way. It was different than all the others Jensen had gotten in this place. Genuine.  
  
Jensen was immediately suspicious. “How do you know…” he trailed off when Jared reached into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a brochure. Jared was one of those - one of them - even if he didn’t look the part with his real smile and baggy street clothes and distinct lack of a clipboard.  
  
“I’m with this place, a home for recovering addicts, let me help.” He shoved the folded shiny paper beneath Jensen’s nose.  
  
“Oh,” Jensen said, doing his best to sound bored and not at all anxious. “I’m fine. I’ll be alright. Thanks, but no.” He held his hands out in front of him with a shake of his head and went to move past Jared. The elevator had grown tired of these fun and games and the doors had shut again, so Jensen reached out toward the button once more.  
  
Jared made a quick step to the side to block him, and Jensen stopped, set his jaw belligerently as he stared up at him. “Really?”  
  
“Really,” Jared replied. “I can’t force you. No one can. Just…can I buy you a cup of coffee? Something to eat, maybe? You look like you could use a meal. Or two,” Jared’s eyes ran up and down Jensen’s tall, thin frame.  
  
No one could force feed him, not help, not recovery, not a sandwich or fuck all else. A candy bar might be nice, but Jensen had long ago learned that everything came with a price, and he wasn’t ready to pay it. “I’m good,” he said.  
  
Jared placed both hands on Jensen’s shoulders. The kind touch felt odd - off after all these years of none. “Are you sure? ‘Cause you don’t seem it.”  
  
Jensen could feel the seconds ticking away, and every one he spent here listening to Jared’s line was one second longer until he could get a fix. It was a waste. “I’m leaving now,” Jensen said.  
  
“Do you have somewhere to go?”  
  
“In fact I do.” Jensen tried to dodge past him again, but Jared was a tenacious son of a bitch.  
  
“Great, I’ll give you a lift.”  
  
“I’d rather walk.”  
  
“I’ll walk with you.”  
  
“Listen,” Jensen said, wiping a hand across his eyes. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I really do. I bet you were the kind of guy who always brought home puppies and kittens to nurse back to health too. Very honorable and all that. But I’m no stray, and I would really like to get on with my day, if that’s quite alright by you.”  
  
Jared listened to this, his self-assured smile not quite as wide but still there, his eyes downcast. He nodded a couple of times when Jensen finished. “Take this, at least,” he held up the pamphlet again. There was a ridiculous picture of two hands clasping on the front cover. “And this,” he said as he took out his wallet from his back pocket. Jensen felt a momentary thrill that crashed just as fast when he realized it wasn’t money Jared was handing over, but rather a subway pass. “There’s enough money on this to get to our place from just about anywhere in the city. The address is in there,” he tapped a finger to the paper that Jensen now held in his hand, “the phone number too. If you need anything, you call, okay? You call me. Anything, a ride, a meal, somewhere to sleep…just anything.” Jared spun and hit the button for the elevator.  
  
The doors opened and Jensen dashed inside, found the button for the ground floor and pressed it quickly before Jared could change his mind. He watched them slide closed, but then Jared’s hand was pressing them open slightly.  
  
“What now?” Jensen asked, his last drop of politeness now lost to irritation.  
  
Jared’s smiling expression was gone, replaced in an instant with an open but complete seriousness. “Whatever you’ve done, Jensen, it’s in the past. You need to know that. I want you to know that I’ll never judge you.” He took his hand back and the doors slid closed.

 

  
Jensen stood staring at a patch of sidewalk, the toe of his sneaker scuffing along the broken concrete, scattering small bits of it before him. He was pretty sure that this was the place he’d been picked up.  
  
He tried to mentally piece together the events of that night five days back. It had started in the Warehouse - what streeties called the abandoned textile mill down the street from here - home to junkies and street punks of all makes and models. From there it had been a quick trip around the block for a free meal with a heaping side of religion at the soup kitchen the church ran down there. Then a pass by that clinic where someone could trade a used needle for a clean one, a quick and easy hook up, and then back to the Warehouse for a fix. Then nothing. One big dark hole. The next thing he could recall was waking up with his skin on fire despite the cold and some sarcastic son of a bitch shining a light in his eye. Nothing.  
  
“Hey!” A voice called from behind and Jensen turned to see Chad shuffling quickly up to him, his too-long jeans making a scraping noise on the pavement. His shoulders were hunched over and his arms crossed in front of him. “Where you been?” Chad regarded him with half lidded eyes. Eyes that always lit up at the sight of junk and went dead and dark over anything else.  
  
“Inside,” Jensen said.  
  
“Inside? Jail?”  
  
“Rehab.” When Chad’s mouth dropped open in surprise, he explained, “Not my choice.” Jensen noticed a very familiar strap slung over Chad’s shoulder. “Give it here,” he said, shooting out a hand.  
  
“I was just holding it for you,” Chad said quickly, handing Jensen’s backpack over.  
  
Immediately, Jensen crouched down and started rifling through it, his spare jeans hitting the sidewalk, along with his sweater. Pens, his knit hat, candy wrappers, a tattered copy of _The Subterraneans_. No wallet. He checked the bag’s front pocket. He found a few nickel bags, and he held them up to the light, a shiver of unfiltered want shooting down his spine when he spotted a tiny corner of dope in one of them. He tore it off, running a spit slick little finger into it and rubbing it into his gums. Not enough, not even enough to taste. The other pocket gave up a couple of needles that he tossed into the gutter.  
  
“Those were clean,” Chad scrambled to pick one up, shoving it into a loose pocket of his pants. “I didn’t use ‘em, I swear.”  
  
He eyed Chad’s hands, the red marks scattered on the left one, lined up in a neat little row. “Dude, you’re bugged,” he said. “Fuckin’ dirty droppers, I’m telling you. Where’s my wallet?” He shoved his stuff back into his bag and shrugged it onto his shoulders.  
  
“I haven’t seen it. It wasn’t in there,” Chad held his hands in front of him.  
  
“Whatever,” Jensen said. That wasn’t the point. “You holding?” That was the point. It was always the point.  
  
“Naw, man.”  
  
“Shit. Money?”  
  
“Again, nope.”  
  
“Fuck,” Jensen spun on his heel and started down the sidewalk.  
  
“Where you going?” Chad asked, trotting a few steps to catch up.  
  
“Warehouse, I guess. Someone there’s got to have something.” A fix came first, he’d deal with everything else later.  
  
“You didn’t hear. You can’t go there. There was a raid a few days back. Cleared everyone out, I was lucky, just grabbed your shit and ran.”  
  
Jensen felt an odd pang at that, it was the closest thing to a home that he’d had for a long time.  
  
“I’ve been staying with the Professor,” Chad went on, “You _know_ he’s got something,” he eyed him sideways.  
  
“The Professor it is, then.” Jensen said, quickening his steps and crossing the street.  


 

  
The two of them let themselves in through the unlocked front door of the tall, narrow brownstone townhouse. The sound of shouting voices coming from the house next door bled through the thin walls.  
  
There was a smell to the place, an odd combination of moldering newspapers, yesterday’s fried food, and something else. Something that underlined it, something bitter, like vinegar. It made Jensen’s insides ache, and he took the stairs two at a time.  
  
The Professor held court on the attic floor of the house, where he doled out junkie wisdom and dope in equal doses. He was sort of infamous around these parts, basically for making it this long without some sort of stupendous bust or an overdose. Rumors ran rampant about him on the street - how he got his nickname, what his real name was, how he paid his bills, how he got his drugs, but none of that mattered much. It never had to Jensen. What mattered was that he was almost always well stocked, and almost always very generous.  
  
It was darkened and warm up here despite the cold outside. The radiator in the corner of the room was rattling away.  
  
The old man sat in a high-backed upholstered armchair in front of the drapery-covered bay window, the slight light from behind turning him into a shadow made of long thin arms and legs. Spider-like. A small table beside him held the tools of his trade: hypos lined up neatly, a bent up blackened spoon, a pile of plastic bags.  
  
Jensen dropped his bag inside the door and approached him, his stomach flipping with anticipation as he hunkered down on the floor next to the man’s chair, like a disciple studying at the master’s feet. “Howdy, teach,” he said. “It’s been awhile.”  
  
The professor’s eyes opened slowly, sliding across the room to land on Jensen. “My boy,” he said in a frail, wavering voice. Then he smiled, revealing a row of stained teeth. A few more were missing since the last time Jensen had seen him. The old man peered into the murk. “Chad, is that you? Don’t be greedy. You were just here. Run along now.” He waved a hand toward the open door. “Tell me, Jensen,” he said, turning back, “what have you learned?”  
  
Jensen groaned inwardly, his fingernails digging absently at the inside of his arms. He’d forgotten about this, how the old man followed some sort of Robert’s Rules of Getting High. It was all about the ritual. He scanned his memory for something, his hands shaking because it was right there. Within an arm’s reach, a stack of nickel bags lined up right in a row. He counted five, enough to last him right into next week. And this man wanted to stand on routine, on a certain order of events.  
  
Jensen dragged his gaze away from the table and stared directly at the professor. “I became the unnatural son of a few score of beaten men,” he quoted. The words tasted funny in his mouth - he didn’t like thinking other people’s thoughts, but rules were rules.  
  
“Cassady,” the professor clapped his hands together once, like a child playing a favorite game. He handed a half-empty bag over to Jensen with a rolled up dollar bill.  
  
A mainline would have been better, but he didn’t have a needle. The first quick inhale brought with it that beautifully bitter taste to the back of Jensen’s throat. He felt it work through him with a shiver, that nameless, pervasive itch subsiding as all of his muscles relaxed at once.  
  
Finally.  
  
Finally.  
  
“Give me another, Jensen.”  
  
The man’s voice was already starting to sound small and far away, the rush was working but it wasn’t quite enough. But it could be, the keys to the kingdom were right there and almost his for the taking. Something floated into Jensen’s head. “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”  
  
“Burroughs, and a good one,” the professor intoned with a slow, wide grin. “Appropriate.” He leaned backward, his head spilling in slow motion to the side as his eyes slid closed again.  
  
Jensen watched him for a matter of minutes with keen junkie interest. The professor was on the nod pretty heavy, and surely wouldn’t mind if Jensen just helped himself. He wouldn’t take much, just a little bit to get him a little further down that road, to pass the time until the old man came back to the here and now. Just another little taste.  
  
He shifted slightly, silently, reaching out as slow as he could stand toward the table beside him, his index finger barely coming in contact with the plastic corner of a bag when the professor’s hand shot out quickly and encircled his wrist, displaying a strength that was surprising, and crunching the bones of Jensen’s wrists together painfully.  
  
“You know what else Burroughs said,” the professor whispered, his skeletal face now so close to Jensen that he could smell his breath like sour milk, could see the spider web of busted blood vessels running across his large nose, as if the skin there was stretched too thin.  
  
“No, but I have a feeling you’re gonna tell me,” Jensen said, pulling his arm back roughly.  
  
The old man cackled and ran a gnarled hand along Jensen’s jaw, the touch making Jensen’s skin crawl and his guts roll sickly. “Burroughs said ‘never give anything away for nothing.’”  
  
“I can pay you,” Jensen said, shuffling backward out of arm’s reach. “I’m good for it. You know I am.” He tried to keep the sharp whine of desperation out of his voice, but wasn’t too sure he’d succeeded. He was close, so close. He only needed to give in and then he’d get another hit, just one more fix, and he’d be right as rain.  
  
“I don’t need your money.”  
  
Jensen looked at the professor closely.  The light seemed to shift, hitting the old man in a different way, turning his skin a new shade of sallow.  He looked more dead than alive.  
  
It could be easy, the old man couldn’t move that fast, he could just take it, take it all and find some corner to hole up in, lay low and get the hell out of town before word of it hit the street. Because it would hit, and probably hit fast. But no one would call the cops, how could they?  
  
Something flashed into Jensen’s head. An image of a warm smile and a promise from a man who didn’t even know who he was, but wanted to make him better.  
  
His fingers twitched, his body poised to lunge toward the table.  He deserved to take it.  It was so close, _so close._  
  
Except.  
  
Except.  
  
 _If you’re broken, fix yourself._  
  
And then Jensen was up and moving toward the door, scooping his bag up by a strap and almost tripping over Chad on his stumbling dash down the stairs, Chad’s confused shouts following him outside and back into the cold winter afternoon.

  


 

 

 

It had started to rain again, a steady frigid downpour that soaked Jensen’s clothes and ran icy down the back of his neck. His subway ticket was a wet pulpy mass that Jensen held tightly clenched in his fist.

He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten here - he vaguely remembered the stares of the other passengers on the train, how they took in his pale skin and hollow half open eyes; the shake of his hands and his nervous tics, sniffing and sniffing and wiping at his nose. They had looked at him as if he didn’t belong there. But they looked quickly away, and that was good enough. No use asking for more.  
  
Jensen slowly approached the heavy door, his wet socks squelching in his wet shoes and fuck, it felt like his nose was on fire even though it was nearly frozen.  
  
With numb knuckles and one last deep breath between chattering teeth he knocked on the door. He almost turned tail and fled, but decided to stand his ground.  
  
There was a decidedly feminine shout from inside, and then the door swung inward, spilling light and a blast of warm air into the cold night. A small woman stared at him through calm eyes that were painted with too much black eyeliner. Without a word to Jensen, she shouted over her shoulder, “Jared!”  
  
A second later Jared was there. His sleeves were rolled up and he was wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “Thanks, sweetheart,” he said as she turned away and retreated back into the house. When his eyes met Jensen’s, his face split into a smile that was maybe more than a little relieved.  
  
“I didn’t know where else to go,” Jensen said, a burning lump catching in his throat. He’d only met Jared once, had only seen his smile that one time. But now, seeing it here in the dead of night, when he was coming down and feeling completely miserable, it made him feel a better, more human.  
  
“You’re okay,” Jared said, not skipping a beat, only opening the door wider and taking a step down to the landing. He wrapped one long arm around Jensen’s shoulders and pulled him in close, heedless of the wet and cold. Jensen stumbled over his own feet, leaned against Jared and paused at the threshold, feeling as if he was getting ready to cross some line in the sand.  There would be no going back.  
  
“You’re okay,” Jared repeated “you’re gonna be fine.” Jared held him tighter and drew him into the house. “Welcome home.”  
  
 

  


 

Jensen rolled over in bed, squinting against the hazy sunlight that filtered through a solitary square window high up on the wall. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten here; into a soft narrow bed with white sheets that smelled like fabric softener. The thought was followed quickly with worrying about where he was going to get a fix this morning. Fairly par for the course for him.  
  
But he wasn’t that bad off, surprisingly. No muscle cramps, no light-headedness, no pounding pain in his skull, no shakes - no signs of the morning junk sickness that had greeted him bright and early on and off for the past couple of years.  
  
The tiny room was painted white with a dark-stained wood trim around the door. Its one window, simple and stark, made it look like a monk’s room. There was nothing on the walls, and there wasn’t much furniture, just a stand next to the bed, and a tall chest of drawers in the corner. Someone had left a glass of water on top of it. Jensen got up, his socks slipping a little on the polished wood floor as he walked across the room to the dresser. He opened the top drawer, feeling a surge of relief when he saw the contents of his backpack lined up neatly. The second drawer revealed a small pile of his folded clothes. The bottom two were empty.  
  
Jensen felt a startling pang of regret, or maybe it was more like remorse. Almost three decades of life on this planet and all that he had to show for it wouldn’t even fill up a chest of drawers.  
  
He was… insignificant. There was no one left to miss him.  
  
He tried to define this bedrock in his head. It was funny how it hadn’t happened on an anonymous city sidewalk a few days back, when someone had taken his wallet and his shoes, and his heart had almost given out on him. Nor had it happened as he wailed and struggled against the restraints in the hospital bed, talking to those imaginary voices that whispered to him. And it hadn’t even happened in some dusty attic room.  
  
They said there was a point in every junkie’s life where they hit rock bottom, and sure Jensen had come close a few times. More than a few, truth be told, but each time he’d stood up, dusted himself off and gone out to score.  
  
But rock bottom for him was an empty dresser drawer in some strange bedroom, where he was warm and sober, where the smell of coffee and breakfast crept up from the kitchen downstairs.  
  
His knees buckled beneath him without warning, and he landed on the unyielding floor, jamming his wrist painfully when he went down. His fingers went numb as he cradled the hurt hand. He crossed his legs and just stared with stinging eyes, unblinking and not thinking ,his breath coming in all wrong, aching its way into lungs that were trying to close down.  
  
Jensen barely registered a soft knock on the door, and when he didn’t answer it opened anyway, Jared’s tall frame filling the doorway. “Everything alright in here?” Jared asked. “I heard a noise--” He stopped when he saw Jensen. With one long step he collapsed the space between them and lowered himself to the floor, setting a full cup of coffee beside Jensen’s knee.  
  
Jared sat like that; just waiting as Jensen evened his breathing out. He placed a hand on Jensen’s knee before speaking. “Tough morning.” It wasn’t a question.  
  
Jensen nodded as he ran the heel of his hand over his eyes, taking in another shuddering gasp of air.  
  
“I brought you some coffee. Didn’t know how you took it, but there’s cream and sugar downstairs if you want it.”  
  
“Thanks. I don’t really drink the stuff too much. Caffeine’s bad for you.”  
  
Jared was looking at him, forcing back a smile as he chewed on his bottom lip.  
  
“Jesus,” Jensen muttered, more to himself than Jared. He ran a hand through his hair. “First a tetanus scare and now caffeine.” He laughed a little at Jared’s confused expression, the rough sound startling him. It seemed like years since he’d smiled, or laughed at all. “How do I start?” he said, after he’d settled. Jensen didn’t even know the right question to ask, but Jared seemed to get the drift anyway.  
  
“Honestly? You already have. But there’s some paperwork,” he made a face, but then turned serious. “There are a few rules, but the important one comes first. You aren’t trapped here. This isn’t a prison, and you can leave any time you want.”  
  
Jensen only nodded.  
  
“You’ll meet the others soon, but I want you to know that we’re all here to help each other. I’m here to help you. Do you have any questions for me?”  
  
“Did you mean it?”  
  
“Mean what?” Jared asked, leaning forward some.  
  
“When you said ‘welcome home’ last night. Did you mean it?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“You’re a real sucker for a hard luck case, aren’t you?”  
  
“Lucky for you, I’m the type of guy who always brought home puppies and kittens to nurse back to health.”  
  
“Yeah, lucky for me.” Jensen looked away. “Thank you.”  
 

 

  


 

 

Everything was a trigger. Every single goddamned thing.  
  
Jensen sat at the long table in the kitchen, thinking too much about the stupid spoon he gripped it tightly in one hand. He flipped it over, turned it this way and that, his blurry warped reflection visible in the back of it.  
  
“It’s not good?” Jared was seated across from him, a sheaf of papers in one hand and a pen twirling restlessly in the other. “You want something else?”  
  
“No, I’m fine,” Jensen assured him with a mumbled thanks. He spooned some brown sugar into the slowly congealing oatmeal in front of him, licked the spoon clean, and thought about the slim likelihood that his body would ever be able to process anything healthy ever again.  
  
“Don’t even think about it,” a hand clapped almost painfully on Jensen’s back, and Jensen jumped. “Jared counts the spoons. He runs a tight ship around here.”  
  
Jensen’s spoon clattered against the bowl as he dropped it. He grabbed the seat of his chair, hunching his shoulders together.  
  
“As if. It’s not like I don’t try, but look at what I have to work with,” Jared chided. If he noticed Jensen’s discomfort, he didn’t let on. “Meet your housemate. This is Chris.”  
  
Chris scraped a chair around and straddled it backward beside him. He blew back his long dark hair from his forehead and stuck out a hand. “So you’re what the cat dragged in last night? You were looking a bit rough, brother.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jensen said, wary. “Pretty sure I’ve been worse.”  
  
“We’ve all been there,” Chris nodded. “I remember when I came here. The first time. I was out of my fuckin’ mind, straight up climbing the walls. Literally. We’re not even gonna talk about the second time.” He grinned at Jared. “This man here, he never gives up. He saved my life.”  
  
Jared looked embarrassed, and he had just opened his mouth to speak when the kitchen door banged open and two other people walked in. Jensen recognized one of them - the woman from last night. She was bundled up against the cold, her arms heavily laden with paper bags. A man followed her, holding open the door as she ducked beneath his arm. She unloaded the bags onto the floor and immediately started rustling through them.  
  
“Coffee,” the man said it like a prayer, shedding his gloves and hanging his coat on the hook inside the door. He took off his knit hat, tried to run his fingers thorough his sloppy blonde hair before pulling the hat back on. He caught sight of Jensen out of the corner of his eye and veered from his path to the coffee pot. “Steve, meth,” he said by way of introduction. “This is Katie, coke,” Steve hiked a thumb over his shoulder.  
  
There was a collective groan in the kitchen from everyone except Steve. “Hey, I’m not one for small talk,” he donned an innocent look. “Figured I’d get it out of the way. It’s what everyone wants to know anyhow.”  
  
Jensen suddenly felt very self-conscious, stuck in the center of everyone’s full attention. “I’m Jensen…ah, whatever I could get my hands on, and a lot of it.”  
  
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Steve said, turning his attention back to the coffee.  
  
“Depends on your definition of hard…” Jensen said, eyes downcast. Right now resisting the urge to dash out the door and sink back into nowhere seemed like the toughest thing in the world. Climbing Everest would be easier. If he could get a fix first, of course.  
  
“I know,” Jared began, “but you’ve done the worst part already. Showing up, that took guts. You’re not alone anymore. You have us.”  
  
Jensen wanted to melt into the chair, disappear, do anything but have this conversation in front of a pile of curious ears. It felt too personal, too private.  
  
“We band of brothers,” Chris said.  
  
“And sister,” Katie piped up, holding a stack of clothes from one of the bags in front of her. She placed them in front of Jensen. “I guessed at your size.”  
  
Jensen was chagrined. So this was how they’d keep him here - with a mixture of guilt and obligation. “I don’t have any money.” Not until he got a new ID, anyway.  
  
“Don’t worry, thrift store special. Your clothes looked like they were being held together with dirt.” She placed a jar of ointment on top of the stack of clothes. “It’ll help. With the scars.”  
  
“How’d you know?” Jensen asked. This was just getting worse, like there was some kind of neon sign hanging around his neck that was glaringly visible to everyone but him.  
  
“You have the look. Morning and night. Don’t forget.”  
  
“You really didn’t have to… but thanks.” Jensen unscrewed the lid, it smelled like menthol.  
  
“One thing you need to learn about Katie,” Jared said, “is that once she sets her mind to something, it’s smart to just get out of her way.”  
  
Jared leaned back, a small smile playing around his mouth. He looked content, like a father happy to have all of his children gathered back home again after a long absence. Maybe in a way he was just that.  
 

 

  


 

“I don’t see the point,” Jensen slammed himself onto the bed, and covered his face with his forearm. It had been a good morning, the first good one he’d had in the three days he’d been here. It was shaping up to be a shitty afternoon.  
  
“You’ll be fine,” Jared assured him. He stood framed in the doorway. “It’s only an hour. And it’s just us. You know us. Everyone’s waiting downstairs.”  
  
“I don’t want to waste an hour of my time listening to everyone’s sob stories. I do that every night at dinner.” It was true, Jensen had learned over the past few days that suppertime here always ended up being some sort of impromptu group therapy session. Chris was always bitching about the number of liquor stores in their neighborhood alone, Katie talking about running into someone from her old life down at the five and dime where she worked, and Steve waxing philosophical about whatever happened on the news that evening. Jensen usually kept his blinders on, shoveled food into his mouth silently and counted the seconds until everyone finished eating.  
  
“Do it for me then. There are rules I have to follow,” Jared pleaded, and Jensen read it for what it really was—a change of tactic, a different angle.  
  
“Fine,” said Jensen , and followed Jared down the stairs.  
  
Everyone was gathered in the living room, and Jensen slouched down in the only open chair.  
  
“I’d like to open up the discussion with a topic,” Jared said, and Jensen was struck by the sudden difference in him, no longer simply a friend but now someone more clinical. “I’d like to talk about what brought you guys here. Not this house, but _here._ ”  
  
Everyone in the room turned to him, and Jensen was totally convinced that this whole thing was some sort of ruse to get him to open up.  
  
“I made a mistake,” he said, after clearing his throat. He knew that it wasn’t very specific, but he had no intention of airing out his dirty laundry in front of these people.  
  
But Jared other ideas, and Jensen was slowly starting to learn that sometimes there was no point in arguing with him. “We all make mistakes," Jared explained,  "it’s what we make out of them that matters.”  
  
Jensen hated to admit that Jared was right. He continued, more to get it over with and play along with the game than anything, the sooner he started, the sooner he’d be done. “My family had money. My life was mapped out for me. Private prep schools to get me ready for an Ivy League college, and then some cushy job somewhere, pretty trophy wife and some top floor penthouse. But then I realized that I wasn’t cut out for that kind of cookie cutter life. I just went about it the wrong way.”  
  
“I kinda pegged you for one of those silver spoon junkies.” Steve noted, by the tone of his voice it was obvious that he in no way meant to offend, but irritation flared up in Jensen either way.  
  
“Well, I choked on my silver spoon.”  
  
Now that he’d started, it seemed as if his traitorous mouth didn’t know how to stop. “My mom.” Jensen paused, swallowed against the surprising lump that blocked his throat at the thought of the woman, and began again. “I don’t remember her ever being sober. Always had a martini in one hand and a bottle full of pills in the other. And after my father died, it just got worse. What’s the psycho-babble word for it?”  
  
“She self-medicated,” Jared offered.  
  
”That’s it. No one in the family ever talked about it. Just like no one’s probably talking about me right about now.”  
  
“Your mother, you talk about her in the past tense…” Jared left the statement open ended.  
  
“She’s gone.”  
  
“Any other family?”  
  
“I have a brother. An older brother. Last time I saw him was when he put a cap on my account. I was burning through what my mother left me like a grassfire and he couldn’t take the money away from me, but he could control how much I can take out every month.”  
  
Jensen skipped the best part about that night, the last time he stood in the same room with the man - his godforsaken Rolex glinting conspicuously on his wrist and some thousand dollar Armani suit hanging tailored and just right on his frame, and Jensen wearing last week’s dirty clothes, jittery and hungry and coming down from this cocktail he’d cooked up a few hours ago. An experiment, just to see how long it would keep him going.  
  
Then there was the yelling and the pleading and finally the disappointment, when his big brother told him that he was just like their mother, and those horrifying few moments when Jensen admitted—to himself, no one else—that there was a small possibility that he could be right, could be telling the truth. But he didn’t like the idea of that; it didn’t fit into his notion of how the world was supposed to work, and he’d walked away, back straight and shoulders squared, and his head held high, just like he’d been taught.  
  
“What happened then?” Jared said in a soft voice.  
  
Jensen ignored the question. “It’s funny. The first of the month, and everyone’s my best friend. Two weeks later when I’ve reached my limit, no one can even remember my name.” He laughed humorlessly.  
  
The room went pin drop quiet, everyone staring at their hands and nodding. Katie silently slid out of her chair and settled down with her legs crossed on the floor near Jensen. She patted him on the knee and left her hand there, even though she had to have felt the muscle tensing beneath her touch.  
  
Jensen covered her hand with one of his own. It seemed like the right thing to do.  
  
“Where did you go?” Katie asked.  
  
“Here and there,” Jensen shrugged. “I got this place with my boyfriend,” Jensen paused, holding his breath and waiting for some sort of reaction from the people surrounding him, but there wasn’t one. “Let’s just say that we led each other down the garden path. Way far down, and I was just the one who ended up on top.” Jensen stopped, feeling wrung out like a bit of used up rag. He looked hopefully at Jared. “Am I finished? Can I stop now?”  
  
 

  


 

 

Six days without a hit. Six. Six days of meetings at the recovery clinic a few miles away, of people trying to convince him that he wasn’t at fault, only sick. Six days of presentations and educational posters. It was an illness they said, something about pleasure centers in the brain and chemical reactions and something in his nerves that latched onto the substances and boom, he was hooked. Just like that. Dopamine levels in the brain. Simple science. Chemistry.  
  
Jensen called bullshit.  
  
This morning he’d spoken for the first time at the meeting, told the people there that he was clocking in at six days clean and sober. They’d clapped. Jensen didn’t understand why. Six days of staying straight was a drop in the ocean compared to a lifetime of fucking up.  
  
After that he’d just clammed up, stared at his chewed fingernails—a new habit, no replacement for the old one—and wondered in which universe could talking about drugs make a person want them less. It seemed antithetical. A twenty-dollar word to describe a ten-dollar a pop problem.  
  
Jensen sat in Jared’s car, his head a million miles away and a nasty taste in his mouth from the tablet they made him shove under his tongue at the rehab place. An opiate blocker, so even if he had the wherewithal to get stoned he couldn’t. Dirty pool, if you asked him, the way they made everyone line up at the door and stick out their tongue, like some fucked up version of Holy Communion. Jensen had a few choice definitions of the Rapture, and not one of them included a Hail Mary or an Our Father.  
  
Jared pulled the truck into the driveway behind the house, rocking it to a stop. “I’m proud of you. For talking there today,” he elaborated. “It’s a big step.”  
  
Jensen shot him a warning look and got out of the truck. The door groaned loudly as he slammed it shut. The sound made his teeth hurt. He was feeling on edge - volatile. He wanted to go to his room and bury himself behind a closed door for a while. He couldn’t even hang a reason on it, he was just off.  
  
Jared didn’t get the message. Or if he did, he chose to ignore it completely. “It’ll get easier. A little, at least. I promise,” he followed Jensen toward the house, keys jingling in his hand. “Tomorrow it’ll be a week. That’s huge.”  
  
“It’s nothing,” Jensen mumbled.  
  
“Don’t underestimate yourself. A lot of people haven’t made it this far.”  
  
Jensen banged open the door and took the pencil stuck in the clipboard that hung on a nail on the wall, ready to sign himself back into the house. A rule. Sign out when you leave, sign in when you come back. Piss in a cup once a week. House meetings two times a week. Room inspection at 9 am sharp every single goddamned day. Go to the recovery center each and every Monday through Friday and pay your penance. The bureaucracy of getting clean and staying that way.  
  
But he could leave at any time. Jared had said so, and right now he needed to find a new reason to stay. The old ones were wearing thin.  
  
The pencil hovered over the paper, his fingers shaking some. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them. He’d signed out, he didn’t necessarily have to sign back in. It would be one less thing. One less strip of red tape binding him, one less rule to follow.  
  
Jared was standing close beside him, peering at him as if he could read Jensen’s mind. Jensen wondered what he was finding in there. Half the time Jensen didn’t even know. Suddenly the ceiling felt like it was too low and creeping ever lower. The room was becoming too small and the sunlight shining through the windows way too bright. Jared became a living breathing roadblock between him and the outside. “I’m gonna take a walk,” Jensen said. “Alone.”  
  
Jared gripped his shoulder, sympathy painting his face. “You know I can’t let you go alone.”  
  
“I don’t care.” He pushed past Jared and nearly ran to the sidewalk in front of the house, but he paused.  
  
There was a mother and a daughter walking across the street from him, the young girl pushing a miniature stroller with a doll in it. The doll was wearing a blue bonnet. The normalcy of it squeezed Jensen’s heart near to bursting. The daughter saw him, smiled and gave him a sloppy little wave. She didn’t know him, didn’t know who he was, what he was or what he’d done. To himself. To the people he had once loved. To everybody.  
  
Jensen waved back and tried to smile, only the smile didn’t stick too well. He wondered what had happened to him, why he couldn’t smile at a kid and actually mean it anymore.  
  
But that was neither here nor there. He had to go right or left. It should have been an easy choice. For some reason it wasn’t.  
  
He shot a glance back toward the house, and was not surprised to see Jared sitting silently on the steps leading up to the small landing. Just waiting there, watching. Maybe he was waiting to see which way Jensen chose so that he could follow, or maybe this was just his way of saying goodbye.  
  
Jensen was struck with the sudden and startling certainty that he didn’t want to know which one it was. “You coming?” Jensen asked, shoving his shoulders back and raising his chin defiantly.  
  
“If you’ll have me,” Jared said as he stood, like he was accepting an invitation to tea rather than yanking Jensen back from the brink of almost giving up, and doing so only by virtue of his silent refusal to leave him the hell alone.  
  
“Yeah,” Jensen replied. “I’ll have you.”  
  
Jensen chose left, left was always good, and together they set an easy pace, matching strides. Halfway around the block the silence started eating away at him. “Sorry about that.” When Jared just hummed Jensen continued. “I was being childish. I should have outgrown temper tantrums a while ago.”  
  
“Don’t apologize,” Jared shook his head, brushing his bangs away from his eyes. “You’re allowed one breakdown a week, maybe two if you ask nicely.” He squinted into the sky for a moment and then became serious. “It’s to be expected. After all, you’re in mourning.”  
  
Jensen stopped short and faced him. “Mourning?”  
  
“It makes sense,” Jared shrugged. “Think of it this way. You had this really great friend. Sure, it wasn’t human, and it sure as hell wasn’t very good for you. But this friend was always there, it was something you could always rely on. Consistent. And you became dependant on it. Mentally and physically. It was what you turned to when things went good, even more when things went bad. The two of you spent a lot of time together and now your friend’s not here anymore. It’s gone, and you miss it. So mourning fits.”  
  
Jensen nodded. It did make sense. All those people at the rehab center with their charts and graphs and slide presentations hadn’t put it into such simple terms. It seemed like they could take a cue from Jared.  
  
“You’re a lot more than just a pretty face. You know that?” Jensen said. Jared leveled a searching look at him, some new sort of tension thickening the space surrounding them. He clicked his jaw closed with regret.  
  
“Don’t be too sure about that, I just get lucky from time to time,” Jared said with a smile, as if he was trying to clear the air. “I could say the same thing about you, Jensen. There’s a lot more to you than you think.”  
  
Jensen hunched his shoulders against the feeling blooming in his stomach, like he’d inadvertently crossed some invisible line that he never knew existed. He set off down the sidewalk again, coming quickly to the corner. He chose left once more. “Are you gonna pull that five stages of grief crap on me?” Jensen asked. He’d meant it to be funny but it fell flat.  
  
“The way I see it, you’re hitting the first four pretty goddamned hard and just about all at once.”  
  
Jensen bit the inside of his cheek, a foggy, flower filled memory sneaking in unbidden. He pressed the heels of his hands against the unexpected sting in his eyes and took a deep breath. He shivered. His throat was aching and he fought against it. Walked a little faster. Looked up at the sky, searching for a recognizable shape in the clouds. Looked down and tried to find patterns in the cracks in the sidewalk. Nothing was working.  
  
“What’s going on in there?” Jared asked softly, a half step behind him.  
  
“Nothing,” Jensen said, trying to prove it to himself as much as convince Jared of it. “Something,” he amended a second later.  
  
“You don’t have to tell me.”  
  
“Yes. I do,” Jensen stopped again and spun to face Jared. “My mom,” he began. “I don’t remember the day she died. The date. It seems like I should, but I don’t.”  
  
“Do you remember her birthday?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“That’s what counts,” Jared was looking at him steadily, patiently.  
  
“I got high that day,” Jensen said, voice soft and shaking, “The day of her funeral. I told myself I wouldn’t, but I did. Fucking passed out in the bathroom of the funeral parlor and my brother dragged me out of there to go to the gravesite.”  
  
Jensen remembered back then; the smell of the flowers suffocating him, everyone so goddamned politely sympathetic, the tie around his neck feeling like a noose, and that terrible insistent burn in his nose from the stuff that he’d just jammed up there. His sister in law had clung tightly to his arm. She smelled of expensive perfume and the heels of her three hundred dollar shoes sunk into the mud in the graveyard. She looked at him and knew, just _knew_ and didn’t saying anything. Because that’s not what you did in polite society.  
  
A thought struck him now. “This is what it feels like to be an orphan,” he told Jared. The reality of it sank into his bones. Jensen had no parents and no brother in the usual sense. He’d been kicked out of his home, evicted off of the streets. His friends were all junkie connections, a parody of a fictive dysfunctional family.  
  
“You’re not an orphan,” Jared insisted, his eyes slightly watery in empathy. “You’re not alone anymore.”  
  
Jensen let those words wash over him, let them chase away the coldness that had crept inside of him. He squeezed his arms across his chest and took two small steps toward Jared. Jared opened his arms, drew Jensen into his chest, holding him snugly while he smoothed a hand across the short hair at the base of Jensen’s skull. He just stood there, like he was perfectly willing to do nothing but this all day long.  
  
Jensen allowed himself to be held, lost himself to the feeling of being small in Jared’s arms, of being safe and protected. It felt like being loved, even though he knew that wasn’t possible.  
  
“You don’t have to be alone,” Jared whispered to him, “not now. Not if you don’t want to be.”  
 

 

  


 

 

An open book sat ignored in his lap. It was some ex-junkie's manifesto on how to get well again. Jared fed him a constant stream of the stuff; books, pamphlets and brochures, things that he printed out from here and there, repeating over and over again that a recovery program wasn't ever cut and dry, that he should take a bit of this and a bit of that and eventually something would click. Jensen wished he had that kind of faith.  
  
As if the thought had summoned him, Jared appeared in the adjoining room, and after a quick check of the living room sat down at the kitchen table. Jensen stared at his back as Jared bent over some paperwork. He had a pencil in his hand that he twirled constantly between his fingers.  
  
There certainly was something about him, it was in the way he talked, the way that he moved, that constantly grabbed Jensen's attention, held it tight and wouldn't let go.  
  
"I see you," Katie said as she entered the room and flopped down next to him on the sofa. Jensen jumped, losing his page in the book. "Don't worry about it," she went on, slapping him on the shoulder. She was stronger than she looked. "He’s almost magnetic, isn’t he?" she said, as if she could read Jensen’s thoughts.  
  
"What?" Jensen nearly squawked. "It's not what you think."  
  
"Sure it is, and you're not the first. It's like this weird sort of hero worship or something. We all have it for him, in one way or another. That, and it's not like he's hard on the eyes or anything."  
  
"Maybe you should go for him then." The very thought inexplicably left a bad taste in his mouth, but he said it anyway, in hopes of getting her off his trail.  
  
"I'm not really his speed, if you get my drift."  
  
"Alright, I'll bite. What's more his speed?"  
  
"You are."  
  
Jensen groaned, gave up on the book and threw it onto the table. "Do you really want to be doing this?"  
  
"As a matter of fact, no. I'd rather be sitting pretty in front of an eight ball right about now, but that's not gonna happen. Ever again, if everything goes according to plan. So, for the time being this is what I got. Do you have a problem with that?"  
  
"No ma'am."  
  
"Good, I didn't think so."  
 

 

  


 

 

Jared caught his longing look and the way Jensen licked his lips as they drove past the old ma and pa deli a couple of miles away from their house. The craving for sweets hadn’t left with the last traces of dope in his system. “You hungry?”  
  
“Kicking smack was one thing, but coffee milkshakes with chocolate syrup and so much malted milk that it crunches between my teeth? Well, that’s something else all together.”  
  
Jared swung the truck to the curb and killed the engine. He leaned over the bench seat, half in Jensen’s lap as he reached into the glove box. Jensen’s stomach swooped down in a way that he’d come to almost look forward to whenever Jared got a little too close. It still surprised him every time.  
  
“What’s that? Emergency milkshake fund?” Jensen laughed as Jared handed him some folded up money. “I can’t take that.”  
  
“Shut up,” Jared dismissed him, but there was no real heat in it. “You’ve been here for more than a week and you haven’t asked for anything.”  
  
“That’s because I don’t have anything to give back. Not yet, anyway. Besides, what more can I ask for? You’ve already given me a roof over my head. I get three squares a day.”  
  
“Technically the state’s given that to you.”  
  
“You know what I mean,” Jensen protested.  
  
“Then a goddamned milkshake won’t make much of a difference, will it?” Jared said. The guy had a point, Jensen admitted begrudgingly. “Go.” Jared gave him a light push. “I’ll wait here.”  
  
Jensen’s feet hit the sidewalk, and he shivered and raised his hood against the cold. There was a cowbell on the door’s handle, it clanged with a loud hollow sound when Jensen entered. It was weird, to be out in public without someone with him. It had been a while since this happened. He got into line, feeling like a kid with his hand wrapped tightly around the money Jared had given him.  
  
There was a guy lingering near the back of the place, and Jensen waited in line, watching with mild disinterest as the man surreptitiously slid a can of soda into the pocket of his coat. It was joined a second later by a candy bar. As the guy turned around, Jensen looked down, spun around, and hoped that he hadn’t been spotted.  
  
“Jensen,” the kid got in front of him in line, his big grin revealing a crooked line of teeth.  
  
Jensen eyed him suspiciously, searching his memory for the name. It was Eli, or something close to it, something biblical. He approached Jensen conspiratorially, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. When he spoke, Jensen could smell it on him. It.  
  
He took a step blindly backward as the guy leaned forward. “You holdin’?” No use for social niceties. The guy looked sick, black ringed eyes and sores on his pale lips. Skin the color of illness; yellow and clammy.  
  
Jensen unglued his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “I quit.” Two simple words, he wasn’t even too sure of the truth in them. But he was getting there, that much he did know.  
  
Jensen swore there was a flash of disappointment that worked its way across the guy’s face. “Money?” Phase two of the junkie code of interaction was coming into play, a song he knew all the words to.  
  
“No,” Jensen said, and when the guy’s eyes flashed toward his hand, he quickly shoved it in his pocket. “It’s not mine,” he said pathetically. His knuckle bumped into something metal in his pocket. It was the chip the rehab center had given him to mark his one-week anniversary of being clean. The number seven pressed into a thin piece of aluminum. He was now working his way up to two weeks. It felt like forever.  
  
The kid grabbed Jensen’s elbow and came in close, near enough that Jensen could smell the sick scent of his breath. “C’mon. I’m sick. I just need to get well. You know how it is. Help me out.”  
  
Jensen tried to shake him off but the guy held fast to his arm, not giving up. He tripped backward, blindly seeking an out. Two backward steps toward the door and he ran into someone. Jensen glanced behind him, an apology forming on his lips.  
  
Jared was there, his face dark like a thundercloud. His gripped Jensen’s upper arms tightly. “Let go. Now,” he said. The guy released him, slinking away and sliding past the two of them.  
  
The sound of the bell on the door told Jensen that the guy had left, and Jensen’s hands started to shake. It was double-edged, two parts relief and one part shame.  
  
“You okay?” Jared asked, his gaze following Jensen’s assailant.  
  
Jensen nodded. “Let’s just go.”  
  
Jared led him out of the building with an arm wrapped closely about him. Jensen bit down hard on his lower lip, the trembling in his hands traveling throughout his body now, damn near uncontrollable. He got into the truck, and laid his forehead on the angled dashboard.  
  
Then Jared was beside him again, fingers rubbing along the back of his neck, sliding across the truck’s bench seat to plaster himself tightly along Jensen’s side. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”  
  
There was a note of desperation in Jared’s voice, and Jensen shook his head.  
  
“You’re fine then. He’s gone. Everything’s fine.”  
  
“It’s not that,” Jensen mumbled.  
  
“Then what?”  
  
“That guy…he was me. That was me not that long ago.”  
  
“But that’s not you now,” Jared said it in a way that was filled with enough conviction for the both of them.  
  
“How can you be so sure? Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck facing this big black hole where my willpower used to be.”  
  
“But only sometimes.”  
  
“Yeah.” Jensen shrugged.  
  
“Then you’re better off than some.” Jared gave Jensen’s neck one final squeeze and slid over to turn the key in the ignition. “Seems to me like you need to get out of this place for a few hours,” he said, peering through the windshield at the sky. “Go for a ride.”  
  
“What about the house?” Jensen asked as Jared pulled away from the curb.  
  
“It’ll be fine,” Jared waved Jensen’s concern away.  
  
“How can you trust us? How do you know that you won’t come back one day to find that everything that isn’t nailed down gone?”  
  
“Because you’re good people,” Jared replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “All of you. You may have done some god-awful things to yourselves, but inside you’re good, I’m sure of it. You may not trust yourselves, but I trust you.”  
  
“How can you be so optimistic?” Jensen asked.  
  
“Somebody around here has to be.”  
 

 

  


 

 

The buildings became lower as they made their way out of the city, high rises replaced by homes and smaller buildings until finally there were none, only a long stretch of road, book ended by bare trees and a steel grey winter sky above. The wind had picked up, pushing dry leaves across the two-lane highway, as if they were trying to sweep the surface clean.  
  
It had been years since Jensen had left the city, and the vastness made him feel exposed. There was nothing between him and the landscape. It was a straight shot, a mainline.  
  
“What’s going on in there?” Jared reached across the stretch of seat between them and lightly pressed two fingertips to Jensen’s temple.  
  
“I was thinking that I need new metaphors,” Jensen replied. “That doesn’t make sense, I know.”  
  
“I get it.”  
  
Jensen hunched down, propped his knees up on the dashboard and sunk into the comfortable vibration of the truck’s seat, lulled by the easy silence that filled the space between him and Jared.  
  
He must have drifted off, a change in the terrain startled Jensen back into the present. The truck was rocking along a narrow gravel road. “Where are we?” Jensen slurred.  
  
“Somewhere I used to go sometimes,” Jared said. “I haven’t been here in a long time.” He pulled the car to the side of the road. “We’ll walk from here.”  
  
The air was crisp and chilly - it seemed thinner - and Jensen felt ill-equipped for a walk through the woods. He shoved his hands deeply in his pockets against the cold and wished he had a better pair of shoes. The underbrush and rocky ground poked painfully through the thin soles of his sneakers. His breath fanned out before him in small white clouds.  
  
When they broke free of the trees, he decided that it was completely worth it. The were at the crest of a rise, the city spread out before them in the distance, almost indistinct through the haze that hung above it.  
  
Jensen whistled low, felt a thrill when Jared shot a pleased smile in his direction.  
  
Jared folded himself onto the ground, elbows propped on his bent knees. “I’ve missed this place,” he said in a hushed voice that carried in the clear air. “I used to come here all the time, whenever the city started getting to me. It always reminds me that it’s possible to get out. That there’s somewhere else out there, some places where there’s plenty of air to breathe.”  
  
A stripe of guilt ran through Jensen as he listened to Jared. Here was this man who was willing to give him everything and ask nothing in return, and Jensen had been too stuck in his own head to bother to learn anything at all about him. He resolved to make good on that.  
  
He settled down beside Jared and asked, “Did you grow up here?” It was as good a start as any.  
  
“No. I grew up in a little no name town between the big ones in Texas. I moved here for school. I just never got around to leaving.”  
  
“What did you study?” Jensen remembered his futile attempts at college, they seemed like a long time ago, class was always something that he’d done in between parties when he’d gotten too bored, until finally not even all the money his family threw at the school was enough to keep him there.  
  
“Sociology and psych,” Jared said, still staring out at the expanse before them.  
  
“You’ve always wanted to help people.”  
  
“Not always. But yeah, for a long time.”  
  
There was something Jared didn’t want to tell him, and Jensen decided that it was alright. It was reassuring to know that they both had secrets, things they held close, and he was fine with letting Jared hold this one until he was ready to let it go.  
  
A breeze blew up, and Jensen’s teeth chattered with it. He blew into his hands to warm them. Jared noticed and slid a little closer to Jensen.  
  
“Is this okay?” Jared said, putting an arm around Jensen. Jensen answered by unabashedly leaning in a little closer to him.  
  
Jensen sat, with the coldness of the ground seeping through his jeans, hip to hip with Jared, their legs pressed close together, and watched the sun sink slowly toward the city skyline, growing redder through the haze as it moved in its path.  
  
It painted Jared’s skin an orange color, highlighted the blue flecks in his eyes, and in that instant Jensen thought that he could fall in love. It would be easy, effortless, and so different from everything else. He just had to let go and let it happen. And when Jared tore his gaze away from the view and looked contentedly down at him, Jensen thought that perhaps it already had.  
  
Jared held his stare for what felt like forever, chewing on his bottom lip, and Jensen became keenly aware of the slow movement of Jared’s thumb along his arm, of the clatter his heart was making against his ribcage, of the way every cell in his body was telling him to melt into Jared and never come up for air. But then Jared shook his head a little, cleared his throat and said, “We’d better get back. Can’t have you catching your death.”  
  
A sharp spike drove through Jensen at Jared’s use of that phrase, some half-remembered thought flitted through his head, but it felt like a dream. “It hasn’t caught up with me yet.”  
  
“It’s not gonna happen on my watch.” Jared got up, dusted himself off and leaned over Jensen with his hand extended to help him up from the ground.  
  
Jensen took it, and his breath caught in his throat when he saw Jared’s necklace fall loose from his shirt. It was a key on a chain. An old burnished thing, too small for a door and too big to unlock a diary.  
  
“It was you,” Jensen said, grabbing it with numb fingers. “I remember this. From the hospital.” Jensen looked up at Jared. He looked like he’d been caught red handed. “What do you do? Haunt the detox ward, looking for the next sad sack to bring home?” Shock was still trilling through his system, and he was getting angry. Self-righteously pissed off. He dropped the key. It landed back on Jared’s chest, and Jared quickly tucked it beneath his shirt.  
  
“I was looking for someone.” Jared’s eyes were wide and there was a slow blush creeping up from his neck to his face. “Someone had gone missing from the house. I was looking for him.”  
  
Some of Jensen’s anger backed off, just as fast as it had flared up. It was replaced with sharp embarrassment. It had been Jared; that cool hand on his forehead, the washcloth wiping away sticky spit from his mouth. It was him who hadn’t been afraid to touch Jensen with his bare hands, hadn’t been afraid of catching something. It had been Jared who saw him at his worst and had still managed to look him in the eye every day since.  
  
“I heard you,” Jared continued, and Jensen didn’t want to listen to it, but it was like trying to look away from a bloody car crash. “You were talking to yourself, and you were alone, and so I lied. Told them I was a friend. You looked like you needed one.”  
  
“Did you ever find him? The guy you were looking for?”  
  
Jared took a deep breath and shook his head. “He doesn’t want to be found. I keep waiting for him to show up. Maybe one day…” he trailed off, and started walking toward the car.  
  
“What’s it unlock?” Jensen called after him. He waited a second before following behind. “The key, what does it unlock?”  
  
Jared glanced behind, saw that Jensen was following him and quickened his pace some. “My mistakes,” he answered.  
  


 

 

 

 

Time crept by slowly. Before, in a time and a place that Jensen had started referring to as Back Then, his days had seemed so rushed -- there hadn’t been a chance to get bored. Scoring had been a full time job, and finding a safe place for a fix is what he’d done in his time off. For the past few years he’d never slept. He’d passed out or nodded off. His body had shirked its natural rhythm in favor of a chemical schedule.

Now he had all the time in the world, and everyday he felt like he was on the verge of slipping in, or worse slipping up. He was stuck in a constant overdose of time.

But if the days were bad, the nights were even harder. Every night he would lay in bed, his internal thermostat running too hot or too cold and his legs tingling. He’d chew on his lips until they were bright red and sore, two fingers pressed to the artery in his throat, feeling his pulse because of a batshit crazy idea that had wormed its way into his head -- that one night his heart would give up, it would finally have enough and skip town. He was sure of it.

Some nights he would stare at the blank walls and wait to see if the ghosts would come. The complete terror would at least bring a relief from the monotony.

They never did. They weren’t real. They were a dope dream. He missed them.

A wintertime thunderstorm was making him more anxious than usual, the blue flickers of lightening had him jumping. The storm made him itch as if its electricity was somehow transferring to his skin. He lay there for minutes that felt like forever, listening to the constant sound of rain leaking from the gutter outside of his window, and tossing and turning until finally he gave up.

Jensen walked quietly past cracked doors. The small snores of his housemates and the occasional distant crack of thunder were the only sounds in the house. It was late, very late, and the only light in the house came from the streetlamps outside, their bluish glow creeping in through the windows.

Jared’s bedroom was downstairs, separate from the rest on the upper level, to give Jared some small amount of privacy, Jensen supposed, or maybe give him a place where he could at least symbolically have some time off. He paused for a few seconds before knocking on Jared’s door. Nothing but silence from the other side greeted him, and he was about to turn away when it opened a couple of inches. Jared was red eyed and squinting, his hair a tousled mess and there were lines on his face from his pillow.

“Everything okay?” his voice was gravelly from sleep. He ran a hand across his eyes.

“No.” Because it really wasn’t, not at all. “I can’t sleep. And I want it. Right the fuck now. So badly.”

Jared opened the door to allow Jensen in, grabbed a t-shirt from the chair in the corner and pulled it over his head. He lit a couple of candles on his dresser before lying down on his bed, resting on his side and patting the narrow space beside him in invitation.

“I’m sick of this,” Jensen said, as he rested on his back and covered his eyes with his forearm. “What I don’t understand is why _you’re_ not sick of it.”

Jared shifted over slightly so that their hips and thighs were touching. Jensen felt a sleep-warm arm worm beneath his shoulders and he let himself sink into the touch, leaning heavily into Jared, breathing in the clean smell of him. It was comforting.

Jensen continued, “You deal with us, these little mini train wrecks day in and day out. I don’t get how you do it. How you keep on doing it.”

“I can’t pretend to understand what goes through your head, how you manage to resist this… thing inside you constantly. It’s got to be like trying to hold a handful of rain. Damn near impossible, but you just keep on holding your hands out for more.” Jared laughed a little. “It’s a shitty comparison, I know.”

“It works,” Jensen shrugged.

“I do it, and I keep on doing it because you are the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

Jensen felt his heart skip a beat. He’d been called a lot of things in the past, but that had never been one of them -- pathetic, maybe; stupid, and spoiled, and weak, but never strong. Not once. He wished right then that he could see himself through Jared’s eyes, see what Jared saw and believe what he believed. Or at least be worthy of it.

Jensen turned to face Jared, placing a hand lightly on Jared’s hip and waiting for Jared to pull back from his intimate move, but Jared only lay there, watching him seriously. “I can’t help feeling like I’m laying next to a saint,” said Jensen.

Jared laughed softly at that and covered Jensen’s hand with his own. “Not hardly. But sinners do make the best saints.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Another time,” Jared blinked slowly, tiredly. “Maybe I’ll tell you another time.” Something flashed across his face then, some hint of sadness and Jensen dropped the subject.

They laid there in silence for a matter of minutes, Jensen with his eyes closed, listening to the sound of Jared’s breathing until he said; “I just want it to be easy. I keep waiting for it to get easy.”

“You don’t want to hear this,” Jared hugged his shoulders a little tighter and then went on, “but it doesn’t ever get easier. You’re probably gonna wake up every single day for the remainder of your life, and the first thought in your head is gonna be that you want a fix. The rest, well, that’s up to you.”

“You’re right.” It wasn’t what Jensen wanted to hear, but it was the truth. The stark naked truth. “You need your sleep,” he said, making a move to get up, but Jared held him tightly.

“You can stay,” Jared whispered. “I mean, if you need to. If you want to, you can stay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

 

  
It wasn’t much, just enough for Jensen to start to believe in the reality of spring. The days were getting longer and the cold grasp of winter seemed to be loosening a bit -- on some days, anyway.

He stood at the sink, hands buried in warm water as he did the breakfast dishes. Jared was outside in the back driveway, bent over the open hood of his old truck. Jensen watched as he closed it with a thunk, wiped his hands on a bit of rag and headed toward the kitchen door.

Things had changed almost imperceptibly since that night a few days back. For the better, in Jensen’s opinion. Little things, like the way Jared’s touch would linger on him a bit longer than before, or the way Jared sat a little closer to him at suppertime, so that their elbows sometimes touched or their knees bumped. And the way that Jensen would sometimes feel eyes pricking into the back of his neck and catch Jared staring, a corner of his lip trapped between his teeth and a faraway sort of look in his eyes. Or in the way that Jensen was happy a little more often than he’d been before and somehow not feeling guilty about it for once.

Jensen turned and pressed his back against the counter when Jared entered, a smile playing on his lips and at the corners of his eyes as he watched Jared lean into the refrigerator. He thought maybe that he’d traded one addiction for another, but that was fine in his book.

Jared approached him, a bottle of orange juice held loosely in his hand, and he got right into Jensen’s space, rubbing a hand along Jensen’s upper arm before reaching over his head for a glass.

There was grease under Jared’s fingernails, black half moons of the stuff, and for some reason that Jensen couldn’t fathom he found it very attractive. In fact, it drove him more than a little crazy.

“You were wrong,” Jensen looked up at him, Jared’s proximity and that pulling feeling in his chest making him act impulsively.

“It’s been known to happen,” Jared answered, setting the glass down on the counter beside Jensen. Their shoes knocked together.

Jensen reached out, placed a hand squarely in the center of Jared’s chest and said, “When I woke up this morning, my very first thought was you. Not dope, a fix, or even how much I’ve fucked up. That other stuff came later, it always does. But the very first thing I thought about was you.”

Jared regarded him with a shocked expression that Jensen really hadn’t expected.

“I don’t know what to say.” Jared chewed on his lower lip for a few moments before continuing. “You start doing this sort of thing for a few years, you know, and you start to think that you’ve seen it all and heard it all.” Jared gripped Jensen’s shoulders with both hands as he mused. “But then _you_ come along. You, Jensen,” Jared gave Jensen’s shoulders a small squeeze, “and you’re crazy and screwed up, and sometimes it makes me want to pull my hair out. But then you say something like this, and I don’t know…” he trailed off, thinking. “It makes me start to wonder who’s saving who.”

“I don’t know if that matters,” Jensen said, and the way Jared was looking at him, that direct stare, had his heart hammering so hard in his chest that he thought maybe it could be heard clear on the other side of town. He bunched his hand in Jared’s shirt, pulled him closer.

There was a split second pause before Jared went with Jensen’s tug, as if he were giving Jensen an out, an escape route, but Jensen had no intention of going anywhere and he lifted his heels from the floor, watched as Jared flicked his tongue out along his bottom lip and then Jensen was pushing their mouths together, opening up and letting Jared in immediately.

With that first taste, that first slide of Jared’s tongue against his, Jensen felt something inside of him click, like a perfectly fashioned key into a lock, tumblers rolling easily, the feeling of something simply and effortlessly sliding into place.

The dig of the counter into his back was forgotten as Jared broke the kiss but still held him close, his breath hissing through his slightly open mouth. He ran a finger along Jensen’s temple, tracing his hairline, the curve of his ear, working lower to linger along his jaw.

“Are you sure?” Jared asked quietly.

Jensen took a dizzying breath, and it took him the space of a handful of heartbeats to answer in his head the questions that Jared had really just asked of him. It all translated down to one simple word, one basic idea. He snaked his arms around Jared’s neck and breathed it into his mouth, “Yes,” he punctuated it with another kiss, a dry, light one, grabbed Jared’s wrist and pressed his lips to the inside of it, feeling the race of his pulse beneath the thin skin there.

Yes.

Jared dropped his hands to Jensen’s hips, tugged at them, lifting him upward a little, and between the two of them Jensen slid up onto the counter. He was higher than Jared now, and he gripped the back of Jared’s neck tightly, tilting his head just right as he leaned down, capturing Jared’s lips once more with his own. He dove in, tongue sweeping inside Jared’s mouth, his hand splayed wide and open in the center of Jared’s back, feeling the hot shift of Jared’s skin beneath his shirt.

He moved back again as Jared pressed soft kisses along his neck. He pulled at Jensen’s hips, fitting himself perfectly in the space between Jensen’s spread thighs. Jensen licked his lips and shivered at the taste of Jared still lingering there. He swallowed the taste down.

It wasn’t enough, but it was close. So close.

They both felt the slight shift in the house before the sound of the front door opening reached them. Jared jumped backward, a tiny amount, a desperate sounding moan falling from his lips to fill the suddenly unbearable space between them.

He regarded Jensen with eyes that were dark and glazed over. “Tonight.” A kiss to the corner of Jensen’s mouth. “Tonight,” he repeated, “come to me?”

Jensen nodded and squeezed his thighs along Jared’s hips for a quick second before shoving him back gently. “Get to work.”

Jared begrudgingly took a step away, doubled back fast and landed another soft kiss to Jensen’s temple. “You are my work,” he said, his breath tickling Jensen’s ear.

“Then you’re one poor bastard.”

 

  
There was a pattern to the sounds in the house at night. Jensen lay in his bed, counting them as if they were some indication of lift off. Nighttime showers. Katie first and then Steve, the groaning noise of hot water moving through old cold pipes. Sinks running and bedroom doors clicking shut, the glow of lights that crept in beneath his door shutting off.

Jensen waited, listening to the creak of the stairs and the distant sound of the back porch door banging open and closed as Chris went outside for one last smoke before going to sleep. Out and back again.

Minutes and minutes that seemed stretched into days as anticipation throbbed heavily in Jensen’s veins. It was a familiar feeling, not entirely unlike all the times he’d stood on an anonymous street corner waiting for a fixer to show up, a twenty dollar bill burning its way through his pocket.

When the house went quiet, and Jensen made himself count backward from sixty and repeat the process a dozen times in a row. Three, two, one, and then his feet hit the floor.

Jared’s door was cracked open, the blue flickering light from his muted television spilled out into the living room. Jensen knocked on the doorjamb anyway. A second later Jared was there, opening the door in invitation, his hair wet from his shower, a light grey t-shirt stretching across his chest. It was darker around the collar where the dampness from Jared’s hair had seeped in. Jensen’s hands itched to touch him, to sneak beneath the shirt and drink in the warm sensation of Jared’s skin.

“Come here,” Jared said, taking Jensen lightly by the wrist and guiding him toward the bed. He sat down and pulled Jensen down alongside him.

Jensen leaned in close, buried his nose in the skin of Jared’s neck and inhaled, holding the smell of soap and fresh clean clothes inside his lungs for a moment before exhaling. He placed a soft kiss to the flesh there before moving forward, reaching for Jared’s mouth with his own.

Jared laid a gentle finger across his lips and turned to face him. “A minute,” he said. “Just give me a minute.”

A sharp seed of doubt planted itself in Jensen’s chest, and he shoved himself backward a little, pulled one leg up close to his body and rested his chin on his knee. Just waited for it to hit.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Jared began.

“I thought it was pretty fucking obvious,” Jensen replied, growing increasingly unsure by the second. “Do you need me to draw you a picture?” His sarcasm was a defense mechanism and he knew it, hated it, but couldn’t seem to help himself.

“You need my help. I get that. But you know all those rules that you follow? The ones that you’re constantly banging your head against? Well, I have rules of my own.”

Jensen started to protest, make excuses, but Jared just held up a hand. “Let me finish. You need me. You’ve said it in a million different ways. It’s my job to keep you on the right track. And I can do that if you let me. I can help you. Or I can…” Jared cut off for a moment, a beat. “Or I can be more, but I’m just afraid that maybe you’ve gotten your wires crossed.”

“My wires have been crossed for so long that it would probably blow out half the city if I ever got them straight again.” Jensen ran a fingernail along a thin spot in the fabric of his jeans. “What you’re really saying is that you don’t know if what I do see in you is really there. Or if it’s what I really need.”

Jared pondered that for a moment and nodded. “You’re not wrong.”

“I should be asking you that question. Look at me.” Jensen held his arms out wide. “Not a lot to offer over here, besides maybe a bad habit and an even worse attitude half the time. Hell, I can’t even sit at a bar with you after you’ve had a shitty day at work and share a beer. I’d probably be the reason for that shitty day at work.”

The tension in Jared’s face melted into a soft smile. “A beer, or the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen in my whole life.” He held his hands in front of himself, tipping them as if they were scales. “It’s a tough choice. Maybe you should ask me tomorrow.”

“You have no idea how tough a choice it can be,” Jensen said, then shrugged it off when Jared started to apologize. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that this conversation has kinda come full circle, and we’ve both sorta ended up at the same spot, which is pretty goddamn close to where we started in the first place.”

Jared laughed then, head tossed back, and Jensen felt some of the stress loosen in his chest. “Six years of higher education under my belt,” Jared said, “and it turns out that you’re the one with all of the answers.”

“Does that mean that I can kiss you now? Because I really want to fucking kiss you.”

“Be my guest.”

Jensen slid across the bed and onto Jared, straddling him, his thighs snug along Jared’s hips and his hands gripping Jared’s shoulders. He leaned in fast but then paused. Just looking. Taking in the slope of Jared’s nose, the angle of his jaw, the way the ends of his hair curled around his ears, how his lips parted as he breathed in heavily through his mouth.

He tilted forward, sliding his nose alongside Jared’s, their lips just brushing, barely a hint of a touch. Jensen needed to go slow and to make it last. Needed to remember every little detail of this sensation - of the anticipation that came with having something so good right under his fingertips.

Jared’s impatience was like a living, breathing thing beneath him. It was there in the quick rise and fall of his chest. It was there in the constant flex of Jared’s thigh muscles, the restless movement of Jared’s hands on his hips, sliding to the small of his back and dipping beneath the loose waistband of his jeans for a second and then back out again. He pulled them close, fitting them together.

And then Jared did this thing, a sort of full body shiver; a low, needy groan coming from the back of his throat, and that was just it. Right there. Jensen dove in, open mouth crashing into Jared’s, a twisted clash of tongues and teeth, want zipping north and south along his spine, his cock pressing almost painfully against the confines of his jeans. He tangled his hand in Jared’s wet slippery hair, letting his other run along Jared’s jaw, coaxing it wider, deepening the kiss.

Jared’s fingers pressed into his hips and Jensen shifted, opening his thighs further and grinding down hard. He broke their kiss on a gasp as Jared moved beneath him, bucked up, and in one fluid motion tipped Jensen backward to land on the bed, following him down.

A wave of almost drunken dizziness passed through Jensen as Jared covered his body with his own, a soft rush of air escaping from his lungs when Jared lowered his entire weight onto him. He couldn’t get a full breath, wasn’t sure that he really wanted one. Knew for sure he didn’t need it when Jared slotted his thigh between Jensen’s legs and pressed up, down, slowly and deliberately.

Jensen arched up, tangled a leg around Jared’s, shifting and trying to counter Jared’s slow movements. He watched as Jared’s eyes slammed closed, a small line forming between his brows, his lower lip trapped between his teeth.

With a small, abortive noise Jared tumbled backward to his side, and Jensen’s eyes snapped to his face, tinted blue in the dim light, his eyes dark, lips slick and kissed swollen. Jensen made a move toward him but then stopped when Jared spoke, his voice a few notches deeper, breathless and hoarse.

“This is it,” he said, “the last time I’ll say anything about it.” He drew his thumb along Jensen’s lower lip, a warm touch. “It’s not too late.”

Jared’s question was hidden in between his words, and Jensen only nodded and pressed his palm along the line of Jared’s cock. The heat of Jared’s skin was bleeding through the thin material of his shorts. Jared tossed his head back with an intake of breath and Jensen latched on to his neck, lips tingling at the vibration that ran through his throat when Jared laughed, low and deep. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Jared said.

“The right answer?” Jensen asked, and ran his teeth along Jared’s jaw. It was smooth, and Jensen could smell faint traces of shaving cream.

Jared’s cock twitched under his hand and he bore down harder, wrapping his fingers around it through his shorts and tugging.

“The one I was hoping for,” Jared answered, mischief lighting up his face as he shoved Jensen’s hand away and settled in the V of Jensen’s legs. He slid down lower and snaked his hands beneath Jensen’s shirt, hiking it up and nipping at the skin of his stomach, fingernails skittering over his sides as he did.

Jensen’s tangled his hands in Jared’s hair once more as Jared unbuttoned Jensen’s fly and tugged his pants down and off. Jared ghosted his breath over the heated skin of his cock. Jensen twisted his hips, unable to look away. He couldn’t even fucking blink as Jared took him in hand, a few quick strokes, and then a gentle thumb pressed to the slit, gathering up the precome there. Jared licked at his thumb, pink tongue snaking out. His eyes blinked slowly closed at the taste. He wetted his lips, looked up darkly at Jensen, smiling, and Jensen almost lost it right there, sunk his hips into the mattress and drew his legs up, bracketing Jared’s shoulders.

Jared squeezed him tight, right at the root, his other hand playing along the skin of his thigh, and Jensen teetered, right at the brink.

“No way, darlin’,” Jared purred, lazy southern accent slipping through, “not so fast.”

Jensen breathed quick, rode the wave of his want down, and then right back up again just as fast when Jared sucked him down. Deep, wet, hot, a slight hint of teeth along the tip for a second, just this side of too much. Jensen was transfixed by the sight of Jared, lips stretched tight around him and eyes half lidded. Encouraging noises bubbled up from Jared’s throat and vibrated along Jensen’s cock when Jensen finally broke loose, allowed himself writhe under the sensation of Jared’s mouth. The force of Jared’s tongue pressed under the head of his dick sending spots to darken his vision.

Jensen reached down, thumb swiping along Jared’s sloppy wet lips where they stretched around him. He slid his thumb in, felt the swirl of Jared’s tongue around it and the graze of his teeth. The heat that had been building in the bottom of his belly slammed downward and he came hard, hips jabbing up, and Jared just rode it out, cheeks hollow and swallowing around him as Jensen’s toes curled and his eyes scrunched shut.

With shaky hands, he made a futile, weak gesture to pull Jared toward him, but Jared got the message loud and clear, crawling up alongside Jensen’s body to hover over him. He idly played along Jensen’s stomach while Jensen breathed hard. Leaning over on an arm that felt like rubber, Jensen kissed him, slow and sticky, the taste of his own come flooding bitter across his tongue.

He fell backward once more, and tried to will his heartbeat back to normal -- to crawl his way up from the daze that threatened to pull him under.

Jared wrapped a leg around his. He snaked an arm beneath his shoulders and pressed his lips to Jensen’s neck, his breath falling hot and moist over Jensen’s skin. Jared started a slow rolling rhythm against Jensen’s thigh. Jensen dipped beneath the waistband of Jared’s shorts, tugging them partway down and wrapped his hand around the thick damp heat of Jared’s cock. He squeezed, smiling at Jared’s quick intake of air and way he bit down on his neck, tongue worrying the skin there a second later.

He wanted to taste Jared, feel the weight of him in his mouth and down his throat, and started to untangle himself from Jared’s limbs, only to have Jared stop him. “Can I just--” Jared began, covering Jensen’s hand with his own, forcing him to grip tighter while he thrust his hips into Jensen’s fist. “I want to--,” he tried again, but then gave up and kissed Jensen once more, sucking Jensen’s full bottom lip into his mouth and holding it there; tugging, biting.

Jared broke free of the kiss, breath stuttering as his thrusts grew erratic. His eyes were closed tight and an almost desperate whine was coming from behind his clenched teeth. Jensen jerked him quick, thumb flicking under the head, feeling the tension build in Jared’s body. He licked across Jared’s lips. “Jared,” he whispered, “look at me.”

Jared’s eyes flew open. They were slightly unfocused and reflecting the low light of the room. Another thrust, a bitten off cry and then Jared went rigid, spilling hot over Jensen’s hand, his arm tightening across Jensen’s shoulders like a reflex.

“Fuck,” Jared gasped, rolling onto his back, heaving another almost whistling breath through pursed lips. He blinked a couple of times, trying to clear his head. “Fuck,” he repeated, and then clumsily kicked off his shorts and used them to wipe himself clean, handed them over to Jensen.

Jensen sat up, scooted to the edge of the bed, toed at his discarded jeans that were piled on the floor. There was an awkwardness creeping around the edges -- but not much, just a little. Or maybe it was just him. “Should I—“ he began. “Do I stay?”

“It’s your house, too.” Jared said, his lips twitching in a sarcastic little smile. He stripped himself of his shirt and tossed it across the room.

Jensen’s hands itched to touch him. “That’s not what I mean.”

Jared kicked the covers of the bed down and scrambled beneath them. “I know what you mean,” Jared explained, his tone softening some. He placed a hand on Jensen’s shoulder, urging him backward. “Come here.”

 

  
Jensen stood at the open door. A late winter ice storm had struck overnight, taking the power out along with it. He watched as Chris worked on the front sidewalk, the shovel in his hands scraping against the concrete as he chipped away at the inch of ice covering it.

The street looked otherworldly. The bright morning sun reflected off ice-covered bare tree branches, and icicles hung snaggle-toothed off of gutters and windowsills. Jensen cracked the storm door open a bit and breathed in deep. The air tasted better than it usually did, clean and cold.

Steve descended the stairs behind him, muttering something about building a fire in the back yard to make coffee caveman-style over hot rocks. “Fucking uncivilized, is what it is,” he finished.

“A little fixated, huh?” Jensen asked, letting the door fall closed.

“We’re _addicts_ , Jensen,” Steve answered, “Compulsion is sorta the name of the game around here. Besides, the best way to break outta old habits is to go right on out and get new ones.” His eyes lit up as a thought struck him. “Hey Jared,” he called as he headed into the kitchen, “We got gas for the grill right?”

“Grill me some goddamned pancakes while you’re at it,” Katie said as she passed Steve in the doorway. “I’m starving.”

She came up to Jensen, her hair tied in a sloppy knot at the back of her head, her too-large sweater falling off her shoulder a bit. Threading an arm through his, she leaned heavily against Jensen’s shoulder. “It’s sort of nice, not having power,” she said. “I always liked it when I was younger. It’s like everything gets a little quieter.”

“A little colder, too,” Jensen noted.

Katie leaned back, glanced at the dwindling stack of wood beside the fireplace. “Speaking of which,” she said, “can you bring some more firewood in before you leave for the center?”

Jared strode into the room, boots clomping on the wood floor, a scarf wrapped around his neck and a knit hat snug on his head. He snapped his phone closed as he approached them. “So,” he began, “I got a hold of the folks at the rehab center. They still have power, and about half the staff can make it in.” Jared looked out the window, up and down the street. “Problem is, I don’t really want to drive in this stuff. I’ll do it, but the truck’s tires are just about shot. We’ll have to load some of those cinderblocks in the garage into the back end of it, otherwise we’ll be sliding all over the place.” He chewed on his bottom lip. “I could always see how well the buses are running,” he mused. “But it’ll be a crappy walk to the bus stop.”

“I’m hearing an ‘or’ somewhere in this,” Katie said.

Jared came over to them, pressed a hand to Jensen’s lower back for a few seconds longer than was perhaps necessary and much shorter than Jensen wanted. The need to touch Jared was a visceral thing. All of the quick, stolen kisses and the lingering, light touches over the past couple of days just hadn’t been enough.

“How are you feeling, Jensen? You doing okay today?” Jared asked.

He shot a crooked smile in Jensen’s direction and right then Jensen wanted to kiss him so badly it ached. Instead, Jensen smiled back and said, “I’m good. I could use a candy bar, but other than that, I’m actually pretty good.”

“Sounds like someone’s about to get a snow day,” Katie said. “Jared never lets me get out of this kinda stuff.” She playfully jabbed Jensen in the ribs with an elbow. “Being the teacher’s pet sure does come with its own set of perks.”

Jensen took a step away, feeling like the ground was suddenly falling out from beneath his feet. The smell of a dusty attic room filled his nose, lodged itself the back of his throat. His nose started to tingle, his arms started to itch like he’d been mosquito bit to hell and back. No, Jensen mentally corrected himself. Not like a bite, more like a shot.

There it was, right there. Need slamming into him with the force of a howling locomotive.

His eyes opened wide, “Teacher’s pet,” he muttered, more to himself than anything.

“Jensen?” Jared said, noticing the change in him immediately and putting a hand on his arm.

Jensen shrugged away from the touch and spun, heading toward the kitchen door.

He heard Katie talking behind him, her voice tight, words coming fast and pitched higher with sudden concern. “Is he alright? Jensen, what did I—? I was _joking,_ Jensen. I’m sorry.”

Jensen slammed past the back door, ignoring Steve’s questioning look, his feet almost shooting out from under him a couple of times on the ice. He slid to a stop beside the tall stack of firewood, crossed his arms on top of it, and pressed his forehead to its rough cold surface. He just breathed, letting the chilly air sink into him.

“She didn’t mean anything by it.” Jensen jumped a little at the voice. It was Jared. It was always Jared. Thank god it was Jared.

“I know.”

“Care to explain?”

“I don’t know.” Jensen turned to him, taking the coat that Jared was holding out and shrugging it on. He leaned back against the woodpile.

“Even if I don’t take you to rehab, Steve’s going to an NA meeting in a couple of hours.” Jared hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “Do you need to go to a meeting?”

“Teacher’s pet,” Jensen said again, shaking his head. “The last time I…” he trailed off, tried again. “There’s this guy. I don’t know his real name. Everyone just calls him the Professor.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Jared said, his expression going dark. “Patron saint of hopheads.”

“So, mutual friend, huh?” Jensen jammed his hands into his pockets. “Small world. I used to stay at his place sometimes. You know, when the streets started feeling too crowded, or when I was too broke to score.”

Jensen looked toward the house and saw Steve and Katie staring out the window at them. “You know how you sort of build your own family when your real one craps out on you?”

Jared came to stand next to Jensen. “Yeah, I really do,” Jared said.

Jensen went on, “I met this guy there, at the Professor’s place. It was right after my boyfriend skipped town on me, after we’d been kicked out of our apartment and the money was starting to dry up.” Jensen took a deep breath. “Anyway, he showed me things. Like safe places to crash for the night and which dealers to avoid. He was loyal.” There was a hollow feeling carving its way through Jensen’s chest; a mixture of guilt and longing and a regret that ran so bone deep he couldn’t put words to it.

Jared’s expression was pensive. “I get it,” he said.

“But do you? Do you _really_?” Jensen asked, searching Jared’s face like he could find some sort of truth hidden there. “Do you know how it feels to wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to move your legs because you haven’t had a fix for a day and a half and every nerve in your body is on fire? When you think that the most basic act of loyalty or charity comes from a man who will go out and score for you because you’re too fucking junk sick to do it yourself? Do you know what it’s like to make a promise, to swear with your whole soul that this hit will be your last, and then break it without a second thought?” The fight went out of him as quickly as it had arisen, leaving him feeling used up, deflated.

“I haven’t lived your life,” Jared began, staring out across the ice-covered back yard, “and I’m not gonna say that I understand completely. People always say that they do, but it’s bullshit. I can say one thing, though. I understand loyalty. I understand how it comes in all makes and models, and how sometimes it’s more important than anything else in the world.”

“It was more than that,” Jensen explained. “He didn’t want anything from me. For the first time in my life, I had someone who wasn’t into me because I was holding, or because I had money, or because of the parties I threw or the people I knew. I think he was the first person who ever really loved me.” Jensen’s voice broke at the end, but he pushed on. “He told me something once. One day when I was sick as hell and no one was answering their phone. He told me that if I was broken, I needed to fix myself.”

“Good advice. Simple, the way it ought to be.”

“Good? It depends on how you look at it. I guess I always took it the wrong way. At least until I didn’t anymore.”

“What happened to him? Your friend.”

Jensen had some ideas, none of which he could stand to put into words. “I don’t think I want to know. One day he went out to score and he never came back. Two days later I pawned his guitar and went out of my mind for a week. At the time I told myself I’d buy it back. Never got around to it.”

Jensen squared his shoulders and waited for the wince, or some sort of accusation, judgment or blame from Jared that never came. He watched the white clouds of his breath float up, could feel Jared shivering some beside him, thought about how karma wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. He kept waiting to pull the short straw. It was only a matter of time.

Jensen shook himself out of it. He just had to get through the next minute, the next five, or the next hour and it would pass. It always did. He held up his arms and said, “Load me up.”

Jared looked at him, a slight trace of confusion brewing behind his calm mask. “I can’t keep up with you.” He grabbed some firewood and placed it in Jensen’s outstretched arms.

“Well, that makes two of us.”

Loaded heavily with firewood, the two of them made their careful way toward the house. Katie met them at the door, a hopeful expression on her face and a chocolate bar in her hand. She set it atop of the stack of wood Jensen was h0lding.

“What’s that?” Jensen asked.

“Peace offering. I stole it from Chris. It’s his last one. Don’t tell him.”

“A little lesson for you,” Jensen started, smiling. “Never drink a man’s last beer, and never, under any circumstances, steal a man’s last candy bar.”

“Yeah,” Steve joined in. “I got another one. Never say something to trigger a dope head with a couple weeks’ sobriety under his belt.”

“I’m fine,” Jensen insisted, shooting a dark look at Steve. “You’re fine. We’re all fine.”

Katie tapped the candy bar with her finger. “It’s my white flag. Just take it. End of discussion.”

He followed Jared into the living room. They were unloading their arms beside the hearth when Jensen heard a distant sound. It reminded him of something winding up, and then the hall light came on.

“Sweet baby Jesus, thank you,” Steve crooned from the kitchen. “Who wants what for breakfast? I’m cooking.”

“Well, fuck,” Jensen said with a sigh. He made sure the room was empty, then hooked a hand around Jared’s hip, pulled him in close and kissed him briefly.

Jared was slow to open his eyes when they parted, brushing a thumb along the shell of Jensen’s ear for a second. “What?” he asked.

“I was hoping for a miserable, power-free night. You know, so I could make some excuse about needing to huddle together for warmth.”

Jared laughed low. He bent and kissed Jensen’s forehead, eyes closed as his lips chased back the lingering cold on Jensen’s skin. “I’ll be right back,” he said, pulling away.

“Where are you going?”

“The basement, to flip the breaker. I’m cutting off the power. I wouldn’t want to ruin your plans for this evening.”

“I think that someone might notice,” Jensen pointed out.

“I dare them to say something.”

 

  
“Turn off the light.”

Jensen tangled his hands in Jared’s hair as Jared skimmed his teeth along that delicious spot where his neck met his shoulder.

“No. I want to see you. All of you.” Jared unclasped the top button on Jensen’s jeans and ran his fingers along Jensen’s stomach, taking his shirt up along with it.

Panic, or at least its kissing cousin, cut through the haze of desire working in Jensen’s veins. “There’s not much to see.” The words came out before Jensen could rein them in. He regretted them a second later.

Jared leaned back on one elbow, toying with a loose thread on the hem of Jensen’s shirt. “Stop it,” he commanded gently. “That’s not you talking.” When Jensen tried to pull him close again, he resisted. “That’s junkie-speak.”

“I’m not too sure there’s a difference.” Coldness seeped into his veins and he moved toward Jared, curling into him, but Jared shifted away.

Jared sat up, leveled a searching look at him that made Jensen want to sink into the bed and disappear.

“Listen to me. This is important,” Jared said, “say you meet somebody, and this person says that they’re a lawyer, or a secretary, or a fucking construction worker. And we have these ideas about who they are based on that. These stereotypes. Right?”

“Where are you going with this?” Jensen asked.

“I’m telling you that we’re wrong. We’re always wrong, because that’s just what they _do_ , not who they are. Sure, you put these labels on yourself, call yourself a junkie or an addict or a fuck-up. But it’s all just stuff you’ve done. It’s not who you are. And I want you to tell me who you are.”

“I think I’m still working on that part,” Jensen said.

“Fair enough,” said Jared and leaned in, kissed him slow. His breath lingered across Jensen’s lips as he spoke into his mouth. “I’ll start you out slow, then.” He pushed himself off the bed, grabbing hold of Jensen’s hands to stand him up. Jensen came willingly, like a docile kid being led along by a parent.

Jared steered him with his hands that were tightly gripping Jensen’s hips, leading him to a spot in front of the mirror on his closet door.

“Tell me what you see,” Jared said, his voice low.

Jensen dropped his eyes, not wanting to catch Jared’s direct look in the reflection. He tucked his chin down snugly to his chest and crossed his arms in front of himself.

Jared’s mouth ran hot on the back of his neck, relaxing Jensen’s shoulders some. His hands snaked around Jensen. He took Jensen’s wrists lightly but insistently and uncrossed his arms. Jensen let them fall limply to his sides. His stomach fluttered when Jared shoved his hands beneath his shirt, hiking it up over his head. The cool air needled at his flesh as Jared dropped the crumpled shirt to the floor. He tried to cross his arms again but Jared wouldn’t let him. He held Jensen’s wrists by his sides and ran small kisses over the nape of his neck, the spill of his hair tickling a little.

He tried to turn, but Jared held him there fast, tipped his chin up with a two long, slender fingers, and forced eye contact in the mirror. Jared’s mouth was set in a dead serious line beneath dark eyes. “You’re not getting out of this,” he said.

Jared was a solid force along his back, molding his body to Jensen’s from head to toe. His warmth seeped into Jensen’s skin, chasing away the shivers that threatened to rack through him.

Taking a deep breath, Jensen lifted his eyes and stared directly back at his own reflection. Tousled messy hair that looked almost black in the low light. Hollow cheeks and pale skin and those stupid freckles that he’d never grown out of. He followed the line of his body. Legs that bowed encased in second hand jeans that were way too big for him, riddled with holes at the knees and tears in the cuffs, the top button undone and the waistband riding low and slanted on his hips. A slightly sunken stomach, he could still count every rib, but that was getting better. The best part of this whole mess was his lips, shiny and kissed red and swollen.

Then there were his arms. He hated them, the veins sticking out like strings on a puppet, still too skinny, still too pale, bullet holed with light purple tracks like some sort of mark of Cain. Evidence of a guilty past.

“Tell me,” Jared said, his hands running along Jensen’s arms to stop him from folding them in, touches like whispers.

And he wondered when Jared was going to give up on him, if he was ever going to be able to look inside of Jensen and see his secrets, catch hold of that mainline to the truth of him—the awful glaring truth that there really wasn’t a lot left in him that was worth saving. That the best part of him was that warm feeling in his bones whenever Jared touched him the right way. That the best part was something Jared had put there.

“Scars,” Jensen gasped, “I see scars.”

Jared wound his arms low around Jensen’s belly, his sun-darkened skin a contrast to Jensen’s pale flesh. “Good,” he whispered, his teeth grazing slowly along Jensen’s neck.

A shiver ran through Jensen at the touch. “How can that be good?”

“Scars mean healing. They mean not now. They mean back then.”

Jensen tipped his head back and rested it against Jared’s shoulder. Jared leaned downward to kiss him -- it was slow and messy, too much tongue and the angle all wrong. “You always know the right things to say.” Jensen’s lips brushed against Jared’s.

A small noise escaped Jared’s throat, something that was half a sigh, half a groan and wholly sensual. The sound shot straight to Jensen’s cock, and he arched his back against Jared’s chest.

“No,” Jared replied, teeth skimming lightly along Jensen’s jaw for a split second. “I just get lucky sometimes. Like right now.”

He caught Jensen’s gaze in the mirror, trapped it there. His eyes were dark and a wicked grin was spreading across his face. Jared slid his hand down across Jensen’s belly, maddeningly slow, his hips grinding into Jensen from behind as he dipped down, gently palming Jensen’s cock through his jeans.

Jensen thrust into his hand, needing more, but Jared kept the touches light, the breath from his low chuckle wandering along Jensen’s ear.

Reaching up and behind him, Jensen wrapped his hands in Jared’s long hair, stretched himself out and closed his eyes. He lost himself for minutes in the feeling of Jared’s light touches across his ribs, and his stomach, and his cock; teasing and never quite enough. He teetered as he tried to balance on the knife-edge Jared was keeping him on.

But if patience was a virtue, then it was one Jensen had never really gotten a good handle on, and he soon lost out. With a frustrated, wrecked noise he broke, shoving his pants down roughly over his hips. He grabbed Jared’s hand and licked it, leaving a wide wet stripe of saliva, and pressed it to his throbbing cock with a groan.

Jared circled his thumb around him, followed with a couple of quick firm strokes that had Jensen staggering forward as all the blood in his body rushed south, a hand slapped to the wall for balance and his forehead pressed to the cool glass of the mirror.

“’Atta boy,” Jared said with a twist of his wrist, flicking of his thumb in a way that made Jensen lock his knees in place. “You can always take what you want from me. I won’t mind.”

A blaze lit up in Jensen’s veins at that and he shoved backward against Jared. “If that’s how you play,” he said as he spun, pressing his back to the mirror, and taking handfuls of Jared’s shirt, shoving it over his head and raking his fingernails down Jared’s chest. The key around Jared’s neck glinted in the light and Jensen ran his fingers along it, the metal warm from Jared’s skin.

His heart was hammering, blood pumping so hard that he could feel it in his fingertips and in his toes as he crashed their mouths together, tongue swooping in, hungry.

He slid down along Jared’s body to rest on his knees, mouth leaving a wet map of kisses along Jared’s ribs and his stomach before letting his tongue work along the soft trail of dark hair below Jared’s belly button, feeling Jared’s muscles contracting beneath him. His fingers shaking from want, he unhooked Jared’s jeans, letting them spill around his ankles.

Jared tipped forward, braced one arm against the wall and planted a hand in Jensen’s hair as Jensen gripped his cock and ran his tongue lightly along the underside. He tongued at the slit, breathed in the smell.

Tension poured from Jared’s body as he leaned over Jensen, his breath coming in small gasps, hips rocking in tiny jerks. Jensen stroked him slowly, running his lips along the crown of his cock, and licked away at the salty taste there.

Jared’s fist tightened in Jensen’s hair when he sucked down Jared’s cock, taking it in slowly, his hand working where his mouth couldn’t reach. He hummed a little at the taste of Jared in his mouth, at the weight of him sliding hot along his tongue.

“Jesus, fuck,” Jared said above him in a gruff voice. Jensen’s eyes snapped up to hold Jared’s gaze. Jared’s eyes were dark, peeking through the spill of his bangs. His lips had gone slack, wet from where he’d licked them, and a blush creeping up along his cheeks. He looked wrecked, high, fucked out and so completely perfect. The most beautiful thing that Jensen had ever seen.

Jensen’s hand dropped to his own cock, slid through the mess of precome as he jerked himself roughly, almost too rough, the combination of pleasure and pain dragging him closer to the edge.

Jared came with a tremble of his stomach muscles and a low grunt as his cock pulsed between Jensen’s lips, spilling hot down the back of his throat, flooding his nose with the smell and his mouth with the taste. Jensen swallowed, choked a little and Jared moaned again at the sensation of Jensen’s throat constricting around him.

Jensen pulled off with a small pop, jaw aching. He was breathing heavily through his open mouth, working Jared through the last of the aftershocks, through a slick of spit and come, the last drops falling hot on Jensen’s slack lower lip.

He licked them off, sat back on his haunches with his feet tingling and his throat on fire. The last taste of Jared and that look on the man’s face washed over him, bringing him close.

Jensen pressed his shoulders to the mirror. “Fuck,” he rasped as his orgasm tore through him, He spilled sloppy and hot over his own hand, streaking his belly. His chest heaved as he struggled to fill his lungs.

In a knot of feet and denim, they both kicked the rest of the way out of their pants. Jared slid down the wall and collapsed bonelessly beside him. He took Jensen’s fingers into his mouth, one at a time, almost delicately sucking away the splatters of come still clinging to them.

He tugged at Jensen’s neck, pulling him in for a kiss. Their tongues slid together slow and lazy, his lips pulling into a smile that Jensen could feel against his own.

“What?” Jensen said, smoothing his hand along a set of red scratch marks on Jared’s chest. He had no recollection of putting them there.

“That mouth of yours,” Jared started with a chuckle. “I always knew it could be good for something.”

Jensen laughed, leaned his head on Jared’s shoulder and let his eyes slip closed. Every muscle in his body felt slack and relaxed and he let himself float, sliding closer toward sleep.

Jared’s voice brought him back a little. “Looks like a perfectly good bed over there,” his voice was gravelly, tired.

Jensen eyed it, unfocused. “You don’t say.”

“It’s only a few feet away.”

“But the floor is right here,” Jensen patted the rug beside him.

“Two hours of sleeping sitting up on the floor and my ass is gonna hurt like a bitch,” Jared said. “And not for any of the good reasons,” he added.

Jensen smiled at the mental image that flashed across his closed eyelids. “I’ve slept in worse places,” he said.

“You won’t on my watch.” Jared got to his feet, hoisted Jensen up and all but tossed him bodily onto the bed. He followed him down, pressing his tall form against Jensen’s side. He placed a soft kiss to Jensen’s shoulder, and muttered something that sounded pretty much like ‘good night.’

 

  
Jensen awoke hours later, the house still dark and silent. Jared’s large hand was splayed across his chest, and small puffs of air from his open mouth were whispering along his skin. “I still think of you,” Jensen said into the quiet of the room. “Not always. Just enough.” The words tumbled from his lips fast, like a prayer. Or maybe a promise. He shook his head a little. Maybe he was crazier than he’d thought, still making small talk with a memory.

He took Jared’s hand, brought his wrist to his lips and felt the gentle beat of Jared’s pulse through the thin skin there. He pressed two fingers to his own neck, seeking out the flicker of his own heartbeat, wondering if they were in sync. They weren’t. It was more like one beat following the other, hot on each other’s heels. His and then Jared’s. Not together, but close. Close.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Thanks for doing this,” Steve said as he and Jensen walked up the sidewalk to the church where the Narcotics Anonymous meetings were held in the basement. “I hate walking into these things by myself. All those people making small talk and avoiding the elephant in the room. Goddamn awkward is what it is.” Steve’s sponsor was out of town for the weekend, and he had come to Jensen, begging him to go with him.

“Do these meetings actually help?” Jensen asked. He didn’t see how it was possible, talking about how bad you wanted something just made it worse. In his book, anyway.

“Why, Jensen,” Jared said, coming up from behind and placing a hand on the back of his neck, “and here I thought you were just here for the free donuts.”

“Who says I’m not,” Jensen replied, hunching his shoulders. It was weird, this daytime thing with Jared. They’d agreed to not flaunt it in front of the others, but it seemed as if they were hiding in plain sight. No one seemed the wiser, or if they were, they weren’t talking.

There was a bench in front of the building, and Jared stopped beside it. “I’ll be right here,” he said, pulling a paperback from his jacket pocket and crossing his legs as he sat down.

“You’re not coming?” Jensen felt a twinge of panic. It was like Jared was his lifeline, his safe spot in the middle of all of this.

“You’ll be fine,” Steve said, pulling Jensen along by the elbow.

“I just never thought that I’d be someone’s wingman at an NA meeting.” Jensen laughed softly, nervously.

“Life has a funny way of turning out,” Steve shrugged.

The basement room was plain. The cinderblock walls were painted white and small windows were set high, right below the ceiling. The fluorescent lights were too bright, and Jensen had the distinct impression that he was a specimen beneath them. People were gathered along the edges of the room, talking in small groups. The tables had been pushed to the sides and a large circle of chairs created in the center.

“You guys aren’t a bunch of bible thumpers, are you?” Jensen asked. They were in a church, after all.

“I’m sure some of them are. Me? Not so much. But whatever gets you through the day, right?” Steve steered them toward a table and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Jensen had his doubts.

Steve handed him a cup of coffee and a donut wrapped in a napkin. “Tools of the trade,” he said. Jensen ate slowly, the glaze on the pastry causing sweetness to explode on his tongue. “If you keep this up you’ll be diabetic by the end of the year,” Steve said, noting the way Jensen’s eyes rolled back at the taste.

“Small price to pay,” Jensen said, and was struck by the normalcy of their conversation, how it wasn’t about using or their past or their mistakes. It was good, and he thought that he could get used to having someone who wasn’t just a fair weather friend.

“Looks like it’s about time,” a woman announced from near the front of the room, and everyone moved to the center. Jensen began to take a seat when a look from Steve stopped him. No one else was sitting. He felt the stranger on his left take his hand just as Steve took his right.

His throat started closing down as everyone started in with a prayer, and he flashed back to about a year ago, when he was sick and strung out, speed that time, if memory served, and someone dragged him to a soup kitchen for a meal since it had been days since he’d eaten. There had always been a price, even for free food. A prayer before supper.

His vision started to go dark around the edges and bright in the center, and then he couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t stop his hands from shaking, but soon it was over, and everyone around him was sitting. Jensen was thankful for that, not sure that his legs would hold out much longer for him anyway.

Steve still had a hold of his hand, Jensen noted dimly, and he leaned in close. “You alright?” Concern had painted his normally mild expression.

“I don’t know,” Jensen said truthfully. “I can’t breathe in here.”

“We can go,” Steve offered.

A person started talking, and the crowd responded with the obligatory “Hi, John,” the sudden shock of noise made Jensen jump.

“No, you stay. I just need some air.”

Steve didn’t look convinced, but nodded anyway. “I’ll be fine, go.”

Jensen could feel eyes on his back as he slipped out the door. The sight of Jared still sitting on the bench right outside the doors felt like heaven to him. He collapsed limply next to him, leaned down far and put his head between his knees.

“We’re gonna have to stop meeting like this,” Jared joked, but concern hung heavily about him. He started rubbing Jensen’s back.

“Even a fucking church is a trigger. Goddamned house of the Lord.” Jensen took a breath before barking out a humorless laugh. He was getting mad at himself, even though he knew that it was futile. “I’m hopeless. They started in on this prayer…and I lost it. You know, religion has always meant a free hot meal on Thanksgiving Day, and divinity’s something I could buy for ten bucks a pop down on Washington Street.” He ran a hand through his hair, looked at Jared. “Can I just sit here? With you?”

Jared offered an encouraging smile. “It’s a public bench. Who am I to tell you no?” He leaned close, pressing a warm kiss to Jensen’s temple. “Don’t worry. We’ll find something that works.”

Jensen kissed him back. Jared grounded him, kept his feet planted on the earth like some sort of gravitational force. “I’m starting to think that _you_ are the only thing that’s gonna work for me.”

“Then I suppose I’ll just have to stick around.”

  
Jensen ran a thumbnail along the edge of the thin plastic, looking at the tiny photo of himself on his new ID card. His hair was getting a little long. Maybe he should get it cut.

The echoes of his footsteps bounced from the marble floors to the high ceiling and back again as he strode across the lobby of the bank. He approached a large polished desk, the woman behind it standing immediately and rushing around it to shake his hand.

“Nancy,” Jensen said, pulling her name from the back of his fuzzy memory, “It’s good to see you again.”

“Mr. Ackles,” she replied, obviously flustered. Nancy looked him up and down once, taking in his ratty but clean clothes and his scuffed up shoes. “You look… better -- if you don’t mind me saying.”

Jensen flashed her a warm smile, trying to put her at ease. “No, Nancy. I don’t mind at all. I’m feeling much better.” He cleared his throat, business-like. “There are a few things—“

“Of course,” she interrupted him, pointing him toward a chair and taking her own. “I was happy to see your brother come in the other day.”

Jensen schooled his expression. “He did?” he said, wrapping himself in a sort of calm detachment. “I trust he’s well.” Jensen was amazed at how easily the language of diplomacy came back to him.

If she was surprised by this, she didn’t let on. “He’s busy,” she replied carefully, “you know him. Now what can I do for you, sir?”

  
“Everything good?” Jared asked as Jensen slid into the truck.

“My life’s so fucking weird,” Jensen said, laughing. “I go in the bank, and everyone’s calling me ‘sir’ and ‘mister’ and smiling ever so politely. But now I’m gonna go home, and I’ll bet you ten bucks that Katie’s gonna be pissed as hell at me because I forgot to take the trash out before we left.”

“Well then, _sir_ , you’ll have to get on that when we get back,” Jared teased. The truck’s engine jumped to life with a rattle and a cough.

“Here,” Jensen handed over a twice folded up slip of paper -- a cashier’s check -- and then busied himself with his seatbelt.

Jared unfolded it, whistled low and looked over at Jensen, his eyebrows creeping up toward his hairline. “Nope. No way,” he folded it up again and tried to give it back.

Jensen just held up his hands. “Call it rent.”

“But you haven’t been here that long.”

“Then call it rent for next month too.”

Jared continued to protest. “The state pays—“

Jensen cut him off. “Yeah, the state doesn’t pay crap.”

“We do alright. We don’t need it.”

“Then buy Steve that TV for his room. The one he’s been drooling over in the Sunday ads. And get Katie a new bed. She’s been leaving furniture catalogs all over the house. The creak in her old one wakes me up every time she takes a deep breath. Get Chris that Johnny Cash box set he’s been eyeing up. Maybe something nice for him to play it on, and for god’s sake a new set of headphones to go along with it. Do what you want.”

“It’s too much.”

“Then call it a charitable donation, okay? Just don’t tell them I gave it to you. You can keep a secret, right?”

“Jensen.”

“It’s nothing,” Jensen insisted.

“You don’t have to pay us off.”

“It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what you guys have done for me. Besides, it’s just money.”

Jared laughed. “You know that the only people who say that are people who have too much of it.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not even mine. Well, I guess technically it is. But I’d rather it be yours. It’s never done anything but get me in trouble.”

Jared was quiet for a moment, and then leveled a direct look at Jensen. “How did you get to where you ended up?” He held the check up between his first and second finger. “With all this, how did you end up on the street?”

“A bit too much crazy and a few too many bad decisions.”

Jared sighed. “Tell me the truth.”

“That is the truth.” Jensen frowned. “Maybe I didn’t want to be tied down by that kind of life, or maybe it was some sort of rebellion that got all mixed up along the way. Or some kind of experiment, I honestly don’t know. Jesus, I sound like a spoiled rich kid.”

“If the shoe fits,” Jared noted with a smile.

“Shut up. You’ll take it then, the money?”

“I don’t think I have a choice. But, thanks, really.”

“Don’t thank me. Don’t even say anything about it. Ever again. Promise?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cut it out.”

“If you insist, sir.”

“Jared,” Jensen warned, “that’s enough.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know what you mean.”

Jensen slid over and kissed him. It was the only foolproof way of shutting Jared up.

  
“Shhh,” Jared pressed his finger to Jensen’s lips. “I thought that Steve was never gonna go to bed,” he whispered. He slipped out of his jeans, pulled his shirt over his head and left it in a careless pile on the floor. The narrow bed dipped under Jared’s weight as he crawled in behind Jensen. “You’re a heavy sleeper.”

Jensen peered across the room, trying to clear his sleep-addled head. “Jared, it’s one o’clock in the morning.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” Jared pushed Jensen’s t-shirt up, rubbed along his back up toward his shoulders. “Couldn’t stop thinking about you up here. Alone.” His breath was soft, and so quiet, moving across Jensen’s ear and sending shockwaves up his spine. “I couldn’t stop wanting you down there with me.”

Jensen knew that the wall between his and Katie’s rooms was paper-thin and started to protest, even as his traitorous body reacted to Jared’s touches.

“Shh,” Jared hissed again, shoving his thigh between Jensen’s from behind and rocking into him.

Jensen bit down a gasp, amazed at the way Jared could take him from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye.

“Jared --” Jensen tried again, but Jared pushed two long fingers past his lips, thrust them in an out, moaned low when Jensen swirled his tongue around them.

“No talking. Just show me what you want,” Jared whispered.

Jensen’s conscience was telling him to stop, reminding him that his roommates were mere steps away. But underneath that there was that undeniable buzz – that chemical that caused his eyes to go dark at the risk of getting caught. The chance. The chemical – the adrenaline blended with the sensation of Jared’s cock riding along his ass, as well as the insistent press of Jared’s body along his own. It warred with all of his ideas of morality, but Jensen couldn’t fight it, and finally he gave up.

He pushed at Jared, flipping him onto his back. He winced at the protesting creak of the bed springs as he made quick work of his clothes. Jensen splayed his knees wide, grabbed Jared’s hand and guided it down. Their fingers tangled as they skimmed along his cock, and moved lower still. A thrill ran through his system when Jared caught on, made a soft noise in the back of his throat and circled a finger around his hole.

Jared sat up, untangling arms and legs, trying to sit up in the bed that was too small for them. He kneeled between Jensen’s widespread legs. He paused, stock still, staring down at Jensen almost worshipfully. “Are you sure?” Barely even a whisper.

“What happened to no talking?”

“I’m serious about this. I need you to be sure.” He touched Jensen again, lightly, tentatively.

Jensen wanted everything, to feel Jared’s weight sinking them into the bed, to have Jared surrounding him, turning him inside out. Jensen rolled his hips, pushed down onto Jared’s hand, and made a soft whining sound. But that didn’t seem to be enough for Jared. “Yeah,” Jensen said. “I mean yes. Yes.”

Jared tipped forward and kissed him, worked his way down the column of Jensen’s neck, the stubble on his jaw rasping against Jensen’s skin, setting his nerves on fire. “I don’t have any. I don’t have anything,” said Jensen, but Jared just chuckled quietly.

Jared sat back on his haunches, reached across Jensen toward the bedside table. “A few days ago,” he said in answer to Jensen’s questioning look. “I told you that you were a heavy sleeper.”

“Bastard,” Jensen teased.

“Remember to call me that in five minutes. I dare you.” He reached down, a finger skimming along Jensen’s rim, before he flipped open the lube and let it run down the palm of his hand, warming it slightly on the way down. He worked one finger inside of Jensen. “Jesus, fuck,” he rasped, sinking in deeper.

Jensen buried his head in his pillow, bottom lip trapped between his teeth as he tried to keep his muscles relaxed, tried to ride out the low burn when Jared pulled almost all the way out and another finger joined the first. Unable to help himself, Jensen hissed against the feeling and Jared froze. He smoothed a hand along the tight muscles of Jensen’s stomach, ran his mouth hot along the inside of Jensen’s thigh, waited for him to relax before starting again, a maddeningly slow slide. In and out, a slick push and pull, and Jensen thought that he was going to lose his mind.

With a frustrated noise, Jared pulled out, left Jensen flinching a little at the absence and pushing down toward Jared.

Jensen rooted through the mess of sheets on the bed, finally finding the foil-wrapped condom and ripping it open with his teeth. He stroked Jared’s cock, a couple of quick tugs, and rolled the condom down. He coated his palm with lube and ran his fist along Jared’s length until Jared shoved his hand away.

Jared laughed, an embarrassed sound. “Ten more seconds of that and this game is gonna end before it even starts.” He leaned over Jensen, lining himself up.

Jensen’s senses took on a crystal clear sharpness when Jared pushed in just a little. He took in the dark glint of Jared’s eyes behind the fall of his bangs, the way the light shined wetly off his slack lips, and the tremble of Jared’s arms as they bracketed his shoulders, trying to hold himself aloft.

It hurt, just a little, and Jared was being so gentle, his chest heaving with the effort of sinking so slowly into Jensen. Jensen moaned with the need to feel Jared fill him completely. He gripped Jared’s hips purposefully, yanking him closer. “I’m not gonna break,” he growled, wrapping his legs around Jared’s waist and holding him there with a tilt of his hips.

“Fuck,” Jared gasped, pulling out slowly. Jensen could feel himself stretch around the tip of Jared’s cock, just this side of painful. He tensed his muscles, testing. He got a groan in response and a second later Jared snapped his hips back down, bottoming out, slapping their skin together.

Jensen dug his nails into Jared’s back, holding on as Jared thrust into him over and over, his cock trapped between them, throbbing against the slippery friction of their sweaty stomachs. Jared’s lips moved in a constant whispered litany as Jensen writhed beneath him, urging him deeper, faster.

Suddenly Jared stilled, head cocked to the side. There was the creak of a floorboard outside of Jensen’s door. Jensen shifted, the hollow sound of shifting bedsprings and their heavy breathing sounding louder than thunder.

The irresistible urge to laugh crept up on Jensen unexpectedly, and he pulled Jared down, snorted into his neck for a second, waiting for it to pass. Jared was obviously biting back his own laughter, and kissed Jensen instead, his lips pulled tight in a grin.

There was the click of a door closing, and Jared shifted, rocked his hips just the right way and some sort of electricity jolted through Jensen’s veins. “Jared,” he gasped, arching off the bed and tangling his fingers into the blankets.

Jared only hummed softly, swallowed Jensen’s moans with a kiss and moved again. Just right. Right there, pounding into that spot relentlessly.

Jensen’s orgasm was building, he could feel it low in his belly, in the way the muscles in his legs threatened to give up and give out, his feet scrambling for purchase on the bed. “Please,” he begged, his voice nothing more than a series of needy-sounding rasps. He reached between their bodies, knuckles bumping against Jared’s taut stomach as he stroked himself fast.

Jared kissed him as he came, painting their skin in hot streaks, moaning into Jensen’s mouth as he lost his own rhythm, sank deep into Jensen, moving in long, hard thrusts. He bit down hard on Jensen’s lower lip, licked across it and broke the kiss to press his forehead again Jensen’s. “I’m gonna—” he didn’t finish the thought, only slammed hard into Jensen one last time, his entire body trembling under the force of his orgasm.

He collapsed heavily atop Jensen, hips moving in shallow thrusts as he rode it out, their sweat-soaked bodies sliding together perfectly. He kissed Jensen deeply, a tangle of tongues and limbs. Jared’s restless hands moved along his upper arms, down his sides, and back up to knot in Jensen’s short hair.

With a grunt, Jared made a motion to pull away, but Jensen didn’t want him going anywhere, not even to get cleaned up. He held on tightly. “Just give me a minute. I’m not ready to let go yet. Okay?”

Jared settled back down, kissed him again. “Okay.”

  
Chris wove through the small crowd gathered in the largest room at the rehab center, coming up to Jensen and shoving a slice of cake on a paper plate beneath Jensen’s nose. “The spoils of war,” he said. “Hand it over.”

Jensen passed the bronze medallion to Chris. It had the number one embossed on one side and a quote, ‘To thine own self be true,’ etched into the other. Jensen was pretty sure that this wasn’t what Shakespeare had in mind when he’d put pen to paper and come up with that one.

“One month,” Chris smiled, turning the coin over in his hand. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Jensen said, trying to brush it off. He took a bite of the cake, the sweetness chasing away the chalky taste of the opiate blocker the counselor had fed him after their session.

“It’s a big deal, brother. It took me three separate tries to make it as far as you have.”

“What’s different about this time?”

“I wish I could tell you. It’s not like I can say I don’t have a choice, because I don’t think I’ve ever had one. Something’s just clicked. I hope to hell it keeps on clicking.”

“Let me know if you ever figure it out.”

Chris flipped the coin with his thumb, and Jensen caught it. “You’ll be the first person I call.” He looked to a spot over Jensen’s shoulder and grinned. “Jared’s back from taking Katie to work. Looks like he wants to talk to you.” With a mysterious little chuckle, Chris headed over to rescue Steve from a very interested dark-haired woman.

Jared was leaning in the doorway, his hands shoved into his coat pockets. He nodded toward Jensen with a very ‘come hither’ smile and disappeared into the hallway.

Jensen made his way through the small crowd, nodding and smiling as the people from his group congratulated him as he passed by. “What took you so long?” Jensen said by way of greeting when he joined Jared.

“Had some errands to run,” Jared said evasively. He snatched Jensen’s fork and stole a bite of cake. “You shouldn’t eat so much of this stuff. It’s bad for you,” he teased.

“So is coffee, but you guys are getting me hooked on that.”

“One month,” Jared said, turning serious. “I’m so happy for you. Proud.”

Jensen sniffed, took another bite. “It’s no big deal. I have you to thank for it.”

“No, Jensen. This one’s on you.”

Jensen wasn’t convinced but he let it slide. The last ten years of his life had been on him and he knew how well those had turned out. Jared was the only difference, the only new part of the equation. “We’d better head back in,” Jensen said, hiking a thumb over his shoulder. “I don’t want to be accused of ditching my own party.”

“They can wait for a second,” said Jared, sweeping a finger beneath Jensen’s lower lip. He caught a little bit of icing there and sucked it into his mouth. He leaned in close, licked across Jensen’s lips with a soft hum.

Jensen grudgingly turned his head away, willed himself not to get hard and was only partially successful. “I’d like to be able to walk straight when I go back into the room,” he warned Jared, but the man just pulled him in for another kiss with a teasing hint of tongue. Jensen broke free, supporting himself on the wall. “Fuck,” Jensen said, trying to clear his head. “God, I want you.”

“You can have me,” Jared said quietly, crowding into Jensen’s space, trapping him there.

Laughter broke out in the other room, another reminder that this wasn’t the time or the place. “Yeah, I think I’m starting to get that.” Jensen ducked beneath Jared’s arm. “You coming?”

Jared stared at him for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face. “Yup.” He seemed to snap out of it. “Right behind you.”

  
Jensen awoke in the early hours of the morning, lying on his stomach, Jared’s warm weight sprawled partially across his back. It was the third night in a row that he’d snuck down to Jared’s room to sleep, always waking up before the rest of the household to return to his own room before morning came.

Moving slowly, he gently slid out from beneath him, body freezing for a moment as Jared shifted to his side in his sleep.

Grappling blindly in the darkness, he found his jeans in a pile beside the bed, taking one of Jared’s shirts from a stack of laundry in his closet. He pulled it over his head, laughing a bit to himself at the way it hung partway to his knees and how the sleeves all but covered his hands.

He carefully and quietly padded on bare feet across the room, through the house to the back porch. The houses surrounding theirs were all nighttime dark, stove lights dimly illuminating kitchens here and there. The predawn light was an indistinct glow low on the horizon.

The wooden floor was cold, and he curled his toes against it, gripping the railing in front of him.

This had used to be his favorite time of day, this four o’clock hour; back in a time when getting fucked up had been something he wanted to do, before it had turned into something he had to do. This was a time for the parties to end, to finally have quiet, a time to recharge and greet the coming of the day.

The sound of the door clicking shut behind him dragged Jensen from his thoughts.

“Everything alright?” Chris joined him at the railing, his flannel pants riding crookedly on his hips and his bare chest peeking out from his unzipped jacket. He rustled in his pocket for his smokes and held the pack out to Jensen, who shook his head.

“Everything’s great,” Jensen said and, oddly enough, it was the truth.

“It’s Jared,” Chris said and lit a cigarette, his pale eyes flashing for a second in the small flame from his lighter. “He’s good for you. He’ll be good _to_ you, too.”

Jensen kept quiet, not sure where Chris was going with this.

Chris continued, “Listen, we all know. We may all be a dozen different kinds of crazy, but we sure ain’t blind.” When Jensen stood up straighter, Chris reassured him, “Don’t worry. No one cares, and one thing we’re all good at around here is keeping secrets. Jared in particular. He’s got yours, mine, his own.”

Jensen finally found his voice. “His own?” A burning curiosity flared up within him, a feeling that warred with his desire to allow Jared to have something that was his alone. Jared deserved it, with everything else that he’d given.

“You should ask him.” Chris went quiet for a little while, and they both stood side by side, watching the light slowly creep up higher into the sky. “Love this time of day,” Chris said, finally breaking the silence, and putting words to Jensen’s thoughts. “This time right before the day really starts. It always feels like something is about to break loose.” He flicked his cigarette butt out into the yard, and they both turned toward the house.

When Jensen started following him up the stairs to his own room, Chris gave him a light shove. “Your bed’s that way,” he said, pointing in the direction of Jared’s door. “It’s a secret you don’t have to keep anymore.”

  
The weight of the key felt odd around Jensen’s neck. The chain was cold, the key itself smooth as he rubbed his finger along the blade of it. Jared had left it atop his dresser when he went into the shower, and an innocent search for a clean pair of socks had turned into something that Jensen knew he shouldn’t do.

He tapped the key against his lips and skimmed Jared’s room, searching for a lock that it would fit into. Not wanting to, but seemingly unable to stop himself, he dropped to his hands and knees and looked fruitlessly under the bed, standing quickly at the sound of the bathroom door opening.

“Hey,” Jared said, a blast of hot moist air following him into the room. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair was dripping onto his shoulders. His eyes flickered down to Jensen’s chest, and then back up again.

“Hey,” Jensen answered and took the necklace off quickly, tangling the chain around his fingers. He tried to hand it over to Jared but Jared turned his back to him, and started rustling around in one of his drawers. “Go ahead. I know you want to,” Jared said without turning around. He replaced the towel with a set of boxers, ran his hands through his wet hair, bringing it to some semblance of order.

“What?” Jensen asked, took a few backward steps and landed on the bed.

Jensen could see the muscles in Jared’s back tense as he gripped the sides of his dresser, chin tucked down tight to his chest. “Don’t play stupid. I know you’re not.” With a sigh, he crossed the room to his closet, reached up to the top shelf and produced a wooden box.

It looked a little like a small steamer trunk, with a rounded top and polished brass fittings. There was a lock on the front. Jared set it on the bed beside Jensen. “Here.”

Jensen slid back quickly, like it was poisonous, and dropped the key down on the blanket.

“It’s okay.” Jared’s tone was suddenly a bit reassuring. “It’s not gonna bite you.”

Jensen wasn’t so sure. In fact, in that moment, he wasn’t so sure of anything. But this was Jared, and whatever skeletons Jared had in his closet couldn’t even come close to matching the ones he’d shoved into his own. Jared had never shied away from anything Jensen said, no matter how dark and ugly it had been. It was time to repay the favor.

Not knowing what to expect, Jensen plucked up the key with numb fingers, turning it easily in the lock. He slowly opened the lid, examining the contents with absolutely no idea what they meant.

Before him was a box full of bits and pieces of this and that; papers, scattered photos, a bottle cap from a soda, a chewed up nub of a pencil, and a couple of dog-eared cards from a playing deck. One of them was the three of diamonds. Jensen rifled through the stuff, layers and layers of it.

“So these are your mistakes?” Jensen asked, not understanding.

Jared came to sit close to him, their knees touching. He shuffled through some of the things in the chest, pulling out a folded piece of paper. Jensen recognized it as an intake form. He’d filled one out just like it a matter of weeks ago. “Teddy,” Jared mused, looking down at the paper. “He was just barely eighteen and he’d been hooked on pills for three years by the time he came here. Three years, Jensen. Vicodin, mostly. He had a smile that could light up a room. Left after a week.” Jared folded the sheet again, fingernails sharpening the creases in a practiced move and placed it beside him.

He pulled out a thicker sheet of paper next, a yellowing strip of clear tape holding together a ragged tear down the center. It was a pencil sketch, and Jensen immediately recognized it as drawing of Steve sitting on the front steps of the house. “Jessie made this. I think she had a thing for Steve,” Jared smiled. “I know Steve had a thing for her. I really thought that she’d kicked it. Seven months in, that’s when everything fell to hell. She used to stay in your room.”

“Maybe you should give this to Steve,” Jensen said. “Maybe he’d like to have it?”

“He doesn’t want it,” Jared said with a shake of his head. “Take my word for it.”

Jared went through nearly a dozen more items, listing their pedigrees, names and drugs and how long they were here, why they left and when they did. Jensen kept listening for a happy ending, a success story that never came.

Jensen picked up a photograph near the bottom of the box and Jared went quiet, waited.

The photograph was of a young woman, hazel eyes with a little bit of blue in them, a big smile, a familiar ski slope of a nose. Jensen was struck with the sudden certainty that this woman was one of Jared’s own. With a shaking voice and a heart that was on the verge of beating its way out of his chest, Jensen said, “Who is she?”

Jared offered up a wan smile, as if he was exhausted despite the early hour. “My cousin. I tried to help her. It didn’t turn out good.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, and then snatched the photo from Jensen’s hand, gathered everything scattered on the bed back into the box and closed it. He locked it and placed the key around his neck.

Heaving a sigh, Jared lifted the box, and shoved it back into its spot on the top shelf. He joined Jensen on the bed again, curling on his side and resting his head on the pillow.

Jensen settled next to him, shoved his leg between Jared’s, rubbing their feet together, back and forth. “It’s not your fault,” Jensen said.

“Spare me the speech.”

“It’s not your fault,” he repeated.

“I opened this place about three years ago, Jensen. Do you know how many people have come to stay here? Eighty-eight. You’re number eighty-eight. Do you know how many people have relapsed? Fifty-seven that I know of.”

Jensen did the math in his head, comparing it to the statistics that he’d learned at the rehab center. It wasn’t too bad, but there was no way in hell he was going to tell Jared that. Instead he said, “But what about the people who don’t screw up?”

Jared only shrugged.

“So where do you keep the good news? Where does that go?” Jensen asked.

“Those people are out there,” Jared gestured vaguely, “getting on with their lives. Happily, I hope.”

Understanding dawned on Jensen and he closed his eyes, felt his heart breaking.

Jared sent all of his successes away from him, all the people who had stayed on the straight and narrow. He kicked them out of the house with a smile and a wave and maybe a twenty-dollar bill, but most of all with a hope against hope that he’d never see them again. Not ever.

But not his mistakes. Those he kept close, locked up tight where he could reach out and touch them. Memorize them. Never forget.

“You’re disappointed,” Jared said, skimming his fingertips along Jensen’s closed eyelids.

“No, I’m not. Far from it.”

  
Jensen followed his roommates in through the kitchen door, each of them loaded heavily with grocery bags. He was feeling a little resentful. If there was one thing he hated more than shopping for food, it was having to carry the bags on the bus afterward.

“Lookie here,” Chris mumbled. Jared was sitting at the kitchen table, a stack of bills at his elbow. “You could have come picked us up,” he pointed out.

Jared didn’t look up from his work. “Leave the bags on the counter. Surprise room inspection in five.”

Jensen revised his earlier thought, he probably hated inspections more than the bus. Even if it was just Jared doing it.

The others dashed up the stairs, but Jensen hung back, grabbed a handful of Jared’s hair and tipped his head sideways to bury his nose in Jared’s neck. “Cold nose.” Jared said and smiled at him, shoving him away. “Get going. I want to see hospital corners, Jensen. Hospital corners.”

Jensen was halfway up the stairs when Chris ran into him bodily, holding a set of headphones still wrapped in plastic in front of him like a shield. “I can’t believe it,” he said, eyes wide in surprise and a dopey grin on his face. “And a new stereo. And everything Johnny Cash ever recorded.” Apparently his ability to form complete sentences had flown out the window.

As he passed Steve’s room, he noticed the empty box on the man’s bed. Steve was already hunched behind his dresser, plugging in the new television that now sat atop the shiny wood surface.

Jensen opened his door and was surprised to see a long flat box on his bed, a dark red bow wrapped around it. He untied it slowly and opened the box. It was a new coat, light brown leather that was soft as silk. He thumbed the tag. Italian, expensive. He lifted it up, removed it from its wooden hanger and slipped it on, the heavy lining sliding easily over his worn out flannel shirt. It was a perfect fit. Holding the cuffs up, he breathed in, the smell of leather flooding his nose.

“It fits,” Jared said from behind him, sounding pleased. His arms encircled Jensen from behind, held him close.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to. Besides, I recently ran across this mysterious benefactor who was very generous.”

“But really,” Jensen insisted.

“I know that winter is almost over,” Jared said. “But you need something to keep you warm.”

“Thank you,” Jensen tangled his fingers with Jared’s. “What did you get for yourself?”

“There’s nothing I want. I have everything I need right here.”

Katie came pounding into the room, rocking them sideways when she slammed into Jared. She took Jared by the shoulders, reached up on the balls of her feet and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re the best,” she said.

Spinning toward Jensen, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly, right on the lips. “Thank you,” she said softly to him. “Sorry Jared,” she said as an afterthought, “I always wanted to do that. Seemed like a good time.”

“Don’t thank me, Katie. This is all him,” he nodded toward Jared.

“Bullshit,” she told him. “But I’ll let it slide.”

Jared shrugged and smiled crookedly at Jensen. “I take it she likes the bed.”

  
It hadn’t been a big deal, not really. It wasn’t because of a fight with a housemate over drinking the last of the orange juice, or whose turn it was to do the dishes, and it wasn’t even a particularly bad day. It was just another day. One like all the rest.

Jensen had bent over the washing machine in the basement, tossed the last of the clothes into the dryer, turned it on and thought that he could really fucking use a fix today.

He marched up the narrow staircase, found a clean spoon in the drawer beside the sink, shoved it in his back pocket, and then signed himself out on the clipboard sitting on the table by the door. He’d been careful to check the time in order to get it right, and made sure he had his key. He was certain that he’d be back more sooner than later.

There had been plenty of chances to change his mind. Like when he didn’t have correct change for the bus, or when he stopped by the free medical clinic to pick up a hypodermic and had to wait for twenty minutes of eternity for the office to open up, or in that half a minute span of time when he couldn’t for the life of him remember his PIN in front of the bank machine. Only he didn’t change his mind. In fact, he hardly thought about it all.

Now he stood once again in that dim attic room, lit only by a single candle on the table and the light filtering through dingy curtains. The Professor was at his appointed post before the window.

“My prodigal son, returned to the fold at long last,” the old man sneered, opening his thin arms wide in welcome.

“Cram it, teach,” Jensen said, crumpling up a twenty dollar bill and throwing it into the man’s lap. He pulled his hoodie over his head, dropped it to the floor and slid his belt from its loops, wrapping it around his upper arm and pulling, pulling tight. “Don’t hold out on me.”

  
There it was, the backtrack, his blood shooting into the dropper, changing the dirty yellow to dark red, the plunger going down. Down, and then nothing. Blissful, beautiful, a thousand other words, but the best one of all was blank.

  
The heels of his shoes knocked hard on the concrete stairs. Jensen had a second to question how the hell he’d gotten outside and then a blast of something shot up his nose. He choked on it, sputtering through lips that felt like they’d been glued shut. He felt as if he was crawling out of his own grave.

Jared was kneeling over him, his hair falling across eyes that were open too wide. He had the heel of one hand pressed hard to the center of Jensen’s chest, the fingers of the other shoving into Jensen’s upper lip, right under his nose. “Keep breathing, Jensen, concentrate on breathing.”

Chad hung over Jared’s shoulder, his mouth working in a constant litany of apologies. “Jensen, sorry, brother. You were so far out there. You had too much. Too much, man. You should have laid down on your side, don’t you remember? So you wouldn’t choke. I found this number in your wallet. I didn’t take any of the money, I swear.”

“Give us room, get me some water.” Jared snapped and Chad stumbled backward up the stairs.

“No,” Jensen muttered. He was so slowed down and everything around him was moving too fast. He couldn’t catch up. There wasn’t enough time to catch up.

“You motherfucker,” Jared said, his voice watery. “You scared the hell right outta me.” He lifted Jensen by the shoulders and pulled him across his lap, into a half sitting position, wiping at Jensen’s mouth with his sleeve.

Jensen’s eyelids felt way too heavy. It was too much of a fight to keep them open. He started to let them slide closed once more.

“No,” Jared demanded, pressing his fingers under Jensen’s upper lip again, jabbing up toward his nose. “You’re not getting out of this.”

The shooting pain brought Jensen back.

Chad returned from inside the house with a cup of water, perking up at the approaching sound of sirens. Without another word he took off at a quick walk down the sidewalk, his head down and his hands shoved deeply into his pockets.

Jared tilted the cup to Jensen’s lips and the cold clear taste of water flooded Jensen’s mouth. “Spit,” he said.

Jensen turned his head and followed the order. The water coming out of his mouth was a sick yellow color. He tried to wipe at his chin, but his arms weren’t moving too well.

Nothing was working and he couldn’t figure out why. Why Jared was there, what had happened to him, why he’d come this far only to end up smack at the beginning all over again.

Jared ran his fingers lightly across the clammy stretch of Jensen’s forehead, along his temple and down his jaw. A thumb pressed for a second along his bottom lip. Familiar fingers that felt so alien working across his numb skin.

“You’re going away again,” Jared said, and he didn’t sound angry, only sad, tired.

“I’m sorry,” Jensen croaked, or at least he tried to say it, his voice wasn’t working too great either. He dimly heard the sound of tires screeching to a stop and the tinny sound of a radio strapped to someone’s belt.

“Don’t. I don’t want to hear it.” Jared shook his head.

Jensen thought he heard the sound of an iron door being slammed shut, and hoped that it was just in his mind.

“What’s going on here?” a strange voice demanded sharply.

“Overdose,” Jared replied, not losing eye contact with Jensen for a second, not even for a blink.

“Who are you?” And there it was again, a flashlight shining into Jensen’s eyes, a blue-gloved hand pressed to his wrist, and the metallic sound of a gurney being wheeled in his direction.

“I’m his…” Jared paused for a second, took a deep breath, and started again “his house manager. I run the halfway house where he lives.”

Pain tore through Jensen’s chest that had nothing at all to do with the smack still running through his system. His ribcage felt like it was suddenly three sizes too small, and tears started leaking slowly from his eyes. He rolled slightly to the side and wretched, watery bile streaking down the side of his face, some landing on the pavement, on his own shoulder, on Jared.

Strong arms were grappling with him, moving him to the stretcher and he was rolling, watching Jared as he still kneeled there on the landing, his head down and his hands resting uselessly on his knees. A small crowd had gathered, keeping their distance as they clogged the sidewalk with curious eyes and hushed whispers.

Then Jared was up and moving, quick strides closing the distance between them. He bent over Jensen, pressed a soft kiss to his lips, and then another, running a thumb along the shell of Jensen’s ear.

Jensen pulled back as well as he could, his eyebrows drawn together in a question. He worked his throat to speak but Jared quieted him with a finger across his lips.

“Because,” Jared whispered, close to his ear. No one else was meant to hear this. “Because you need to know that there’s someone in this world who loves you. More than anything. Remember that, okay? Don’t forget it.”

 

 

 

 

 

The doors slid open, and there was one last overhead blast of cool, compressed air before Jensen walked out into the sticky summertime humidity. He paused, breathed the outside in deep, holding it, the mixture of dust and dirt and car exhaust.

The thin sweatshirt was already stifling him, and Jensen wanted to take it off, but his hands stopped with the zipper only part way down. He was afraid of his arms, the thinness of them, the blindingly pale skin and the dark scars running along the insides that would show the world what he was, or what he had been.

A gentle hand wrapped around his elbow and he glanced down toward the woman at his side. It was Constance, his recovery counselor that had been appointed by the powers that be. Jensen thought that maybe they’d gotten the name wrong. Patience would be a better name for her, but Constance might be close enough.

“You okay?” She asked him, but didn’t need an answer. Her upturned eyes were sparkling and her smile warm, and when she gave his arm an affectionate squeeze, Jensen knew that he loved her, just a little.

He finished with the zipper and shoved his sleeves up a couple of inches, checking to see if his tracks were still hidden. They were, it would be enough. “Are we taking the train?” Jensen said, he had the address of his new halfway house memorized, but the name and the number meant nothing to him. The city was big, full of unfamiliar places.

“It’s not far, and you look like you could use a walk, love.” That was another thing about her, a pet name she called everybody. Like she could see the potential for it in everyone. It was probably a symptom of her job, or a requirement. “But first,” she said, shifting her gaze toward the street.

Jensen followed it, watched as a beat up old Chevy pickup came to a quick and rocking stop along the sidewalk. It backfired once when the engine was cut off. The door squawked as Jared got out. He rounded the front of the truck, the expression on his face a little hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure whether this was alright. Rather than approaching the two of them, he leaned against the passenger side. Tilting his head to the side, he crossed his arms and just watched Jensen, watched him like that was the only thing he planned to do all day.

Jensen knew this would happen eventually, but right now it felt too soon. Too soon to come up with all the words for all the apologies he needed to make to Jared, a man who had been willing to give Jensen the world on a shiny silver platter if he had only been brave enough to reach out and grab hold of it. He thought about his last twenty-eight days in the rehab center, and all of the times he’d picked up the phone to call Jared, only to stare futilely at the receiver before hanging it up again.

Jensen’s hand crept up to the crook of his arm, nails absently scratching as he stared back at Jared. There was no itch, he realized, and snatched the hand away, instead digging the nails into his blue jeans at the thigh. It turned out that some habits were hard to kill. That was one thing that Jensen had definitely learned over the past few weeks. Old habits never died on their own, you had to kill them. Even then they sometimes came back.

A light push to the small of his back by Constance got him moving. A few dragging steps and a nervous glance back to her. He had to face the inevitable, and only hoped that it wouldn’t hurt too badly.

“Hey,” Jensen said, stopping a few small steps short of Jared. Summertime looked good on Jared. His skin was tanned dark, hair a little streaked -- highlighted from time spent outside. Jensen thought about what he must look like right now, skin so thin and pale that he had to appear more like a ghost than a living, breathing person.

“It got hot out,” Jared said, and the way he sounded, the way the words purred, made Jensen shiver, even though he was stifling.

Jared pushed himself off the car, took one long step toward Jensen, wrapping his hands in the front of Jensen’s sweatshirt, and Jensen thought he was now going to get it, all the frustration, anger, everything. He stared Jared right in the eye, unblinking, clenching his jaw and waiting for it to hit.

The yelling never came, no accusation. Jared pushed the sweatshirt off Jensen’s shoulders, further down until he was free of it. Jensen just stood there, arms out like a child as Jared tied it around his waist. When Jared was finished, he took one of Jensen’s hands in his own, pulling his arm out and looking. Brushing his fingertips lightly over the scars there, he said, “You don’t have to hide from me. I know who you are.”

It hit him like a gunshot, and it took a few moments for Jensen to speak, for him to trust his voice. He pulled his arm back from Jared’s grip, fought the urge to wrap them around himself and hide as well as he could. There was this feeling of nakedness. Complete exposure. “But you don’t know what I’ve done,” Jensen ran a hand over his eyes. “Not all of it, anyhow. Hell, I don’t think that I even know.”

All the while Jared was staring at him as if he were some sort of abstract art form that he couldn’t quite understand, but felt drawn to nonetheless. “I don’t need to,” he said, and it was simple, the words spoken with a staggering truthfulness that Jensen still was not accustomed to, even after all this time.

He took a step forward, into Jared’s space, squinting up at him. The sun was right behind him, reducing Jared’s face to a silhouette, full of dark shadows. He moved in closer, until Jared completely filled his field of vision.

“When you look at me, what do you see?” Jensen asked without thinking.

Jared tilted his head some, his eyes narrowed, considering.

When Jared kept quiet, Jensen shook his head and continued, “You don’t have to answer that.” He didn’t want to know, not really. It was frightening. He was afraid of the wrong answer, perhaps even more afraid of the right one.

Jared took a deep breath, answered on the exhale. “Nothing.” The tone of his voice wasn’t cruel, only real. Honest.

Jensen nodded, sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and bit down hard. It wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for, but at least he now knew that he could rely on Jared to not lie to him. “Thank you,” Jensen said, stepping blindly backward and starting to turn away. That was the truth, after all, and maybe someday he would be able to make himself into something that was a little more than that. But right now he wasn’t, and that was alright. All right.

Another step away and suddenly he felt insistent hands grabbing his arms from behind, pulling him backward some, stopping his forward momentum so fast that his cheap sneakers skidded and squeaked on the pavement. Jared’s hair tickled his ear when he leaned in close and pressed his lips to Jensen’s neck as he wrapped his arms around his shoulders. “And everything,” Jared whispered, so low that Jensen feared that it may have only been wishful thinking. But his wishes weren’t allowed to come true. Not yet, anyway.

Jensen made a move to face him, but Jared just held him fast. Instead, he wrapped his fingers loosely around Jared’s wrist and made a little noise, the closest he could come to a question.

“When I look at you, Jensen, I see everything. Everything. Always.”

 

 

 

 

~fin~

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 


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